THE  ARTS  OF  LIFE 


i 


THE  ARTS 
OF  LIFE 


BY 


RICHARD  ROGERS  BOWKER 


mmmmm^ 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1900 


-3^ 


COPYRIGIj[T,    ipoo,   BY   RICHARD   ROGERS  COWKER 
AI-::.   RIGHTS   RSSJSRVJiD     , 


31n  l^fe  ipame 

AND  WITH  THE  NAMES  OF 
PAUL  THE  WORLD- APOSTLE, 
DARWIN,  SPENCER,  GLAD- 
STONE, WORLDS-MEN  ALL, 
THIS  ESSAY  OF  RECONCILI- 
ATION IS   INSCRIBED 


9625G2 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/artsoflifeOObowkrich 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

PROEM  :   GROWTH vii 

FOREWORD I 

FIRSTS   AND   LASTS II 

OF  EDUCATION 49 

OF   BUSINESS 97 

OF  POLITICS 151 

OF  RELIGION 219 

THE  END             . 291 


PROEM 

GROWTH 

(On  reading  Schliemann's  "  Troy  "  and  Tylor's  "  Primi- 
tive Culture'*) 

.  .  .  Ah,  old  Troy  /  long  buried,  long  forgot  ! 
Below,  another  Troy ;   below,  Troy  older  /   What 
Below,  who  telleth  ?     Such  is  aye  man^s  lot  — 

Building  on  his  earth-hid  past, 
The  last  forever  to  last  / 
Ah,  the  leaves  in  Timers  blast. 

How  they  whirl  and  flutter  and  fall. 
And  cover  the  old  with  their  pall. 
And  nourish  the  new  with  their  all ! 

Behold  Lifers  history  ! 
Behold  Death^s  mystery  / 
Behold  Earth^ s  prophecy  / 

In  every  new  lives  all  the  old; 

The  present  builds  on  all  pasts'  mould. 

So  the  beads  of  Tim^s  rosary  are  told. 

And  still  the  man  repeats  the  race : 
The  baby* s  faltering,  awkward  grcue 
Pit-pats  in  the  primeval  pace. 
vii 


PROEM 

E'en  in  our  common,  daily  talk^ 
The  ghosts  of  generations  stalk, 
And  hand  in  hand  the  ages  walk. 

And  ever  creeping  forth  from  night, 
And  ever  groping  toward  the  light, 
And  ever  seeking  for  the  right, 

Man^s  story  from  his  birth 
Re-tells  the  history  of  his  earth 
His  water-andfire-baptiztd  earth, 

Stratum  on  stratum  piled.     So  men, 
Thoughts,  words,  ways,  deeds,  —  again, 
Again,  again,  and  yet  again  / 

Graves  engulf  graves.     The  old,  dead  past 

Coffins  its  pasts  in  rock-ribs  fast. 

And  yet  —  and  yet  —  //  lives,  the  past  / 

Thus  grows  dear  Earth  toward  starry  skies 
And  buries  cities  —  but  new  cities  rise. 
So  the  great  race  of  man  grows  wise. 


Vlll 


FOREWORD 


FOREWORD  "    -     '     ''   '  - 

!lFE  is  an  art. 

There  is  born  into  this  world, 
we  know  not  whence,  or  how,  The  Infant 
or  why,  an  infant  Being.  Out  ^^^^s 
of  this  plastic  clay  is  to  grow, 
touch  by  touch,  the  divine  image,  the  lovely 
statue  of  the  Soul.  Coarse  clay  or  fine  clay 
it  may  be,  but  coarse  or  fine  it  is  to  be  formed, 
or  de-formed.  Created  in  the  unknown  gene- 
sis of  elemental  being,  kneaded  in  the  influ- 
ences of  all  the  ages  that  have  made  ready 
for  it,  rough -cast  in  the  mould  of  its  human 
parentage,  it  comes  —  to  life.  A  life,  in  life  ! 
The  hands  that  shape  it  first  are  not  its  own. 
But  presently  it  becomes  conscious,  willing, 
responsible,  into  whose  own  care  is  put  the 
shaping  of  its  Self.  Always  human  influences 
are  about  it,  to  help  or  to  harm,  to  in-spirit  or 
to  de-face,  and  in  its  turn  it  becomes  an  influ- 
ence, shaping  as  it  is  shaped.  Around  it  is 
Nature,  willing  to  give  what  each  will  take, 
and  above  it  the  infinite  of  the  Heavens,  from 
which  comes  light,  to  those  whose  eyes  are 
open  to  that  light.  To  him  who  will,  this  shap- 
ing of  life  becomes  an  art,  and  the  highest  of 
arts,  in  which  all  of  us  have  part  in  the  forming 
3 


-        THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

7t  ^  «/?  <>/, ;'  'of  each  other  soul,  but  in  which  also,  and  above 

'"  '  '  all,  each  soul  is  the  master-artist  of  its  Self. 

We  have  not  so  willed ;  we  have  not  set 

The  Art  of    ourselves  so  to  do.     With  all  our  learning, 

Living  ^g  ha.vQ  failed  to  learn  living.     With  all  our 

science,  we  have  neglected   the  science  of 

our  own  lives.     With  all  our  art,  we  have 

ignored  the  art  which  lifts  all  other  arts  to 

their    supreme  purpose   and   in    which   all 

other  arts  should  fruit. 

The  supreme  flower  is  a  human  character. 
Character      The  unfolding  rose,  perfect  among  flowers,  in 
Fwf^"^  full  beauty  of  form  and  glory  of  color  and  ra- 
diance of  scent,  is  but  its  type.     To  produce 
the  perfect  rose  is  an  art.     Nature  gives  us 
the  wild  rose  and  the  eglantine,  the  scentless 
flower,  the  scented  leaf,  of  these  roses  of  the 
field.     The  gardener  knows  plant-life,  selects 
and  brings  together,  studies  the  seedling  or 
the  graft,  and  according  to  the  needs  of  the 
growing   plant   gives   it   light   and    air   and 
warmth  and  soil  and  care.      And  with  the 
shapings  of  his  art,  comes  at  last  the  rose 
perfect  after  its  fashion,  the  rose  among  roses. 
The  supreme  jewel  is  a  human  soul.     The 
The  Soul       diamond  is  but  its  symbol,  in  perfect  cutting 
jewe?^"^^""^  giving  forth  from  its  every-sided  facets,  with 

4 


FOREWORD 

all  beauty  of  sparkle  and  of  color,  the  light 
which  it  takes  unto  itself.  The  cutting  of  the 
diamond  is  an  art.  He  who  will  cut  a  great 
jewel  trains  himself  in  much  knowledge  of 
jewels,  studies  with  infinite  patience  his  jewel 
in  the  rough  to  know  in  what  form  it  will 
best  shine,  concentrates  his  knowledge,  his 
skill,  his  very  life  in  conscious  and  conscien- 
tious toil  at  his  task,  spends  months  upon  a 
facet  and  a  lifetime  in  completing  the  perfect 
work.  And  nothing  less  fine  than  diamond 
itself  can  cut  the  diamond,  —  so  human  de- 
velopment answers  only  to  human  character. 

A  human  life,  each  human  life,  may  be  and 
should  be,  in  the  same  sense,  a  work  of  con-  a  Life  an 
scious  and  purposed  art.  It  is  the  supreme  ^^*  Work 
defect  of  our  civilization  that  we  fail  here. 
To  the  rearing  of  animals,  to  the  perfecting 
of  a  piece  of  inanimate  machinery,  to  the 
learning  of  a  profession,  we  give  time  and 
thought  and  care  and  training  which  we  do 
not  give,  in  the  highest  human  relations,  to 
ourselves,  or  our  children,  or  our  friends,  or 
the  passing  human  beings  who  are  a  part  of 
our  lives  and  of  whose  lives  we  make  part. 
Each  day  is  a  frame  into  which  we  may  in 
large  measure  paint  such  pictures  as  we  will ; 
5 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

each  life,  and  most  of  all  one's  own  life,  is  a 
marble  from  which  we  may  in  some  measure 
carve  forth  our  ideal.  Sometimes  we  say  this 
about  our  children ;  less  often  we  think  it 
about  ourselves  ;  almost  never  do  we  get  it 
into  actual  working  realization  for  either. 

A  girl  goes  to  Paris  to  "  study  art,"  who  has 
The  Study  never  thought  at  home  of  studying  herself, 
°      *  ®  or  her  home,  or  her  friends,  with  any  rela- 

tion to  the  creative  opportunities  of  the  high- 
est art,  the  modeling  of  souls,  which  are 
literally  at  her  hand.  The  mistress  of  an 
"artistic"  house  forgets  to  apply  to  people 
the  care  she  lavishes  upon  things  :  her  table, 
her  dinner,  her  toilet,  is  a  work  of  art,  but 
for  her  own  development  she  has  no  care ; 
her  wines  are  of  select  vintage,  but  her  con- 
versation is  the  stale  beer  of  gossip ;  she 
plays  sonatas  on  the  piano,  but  jangles  hu- 
man chords  out  of  tune.  The  master  of  a 
profession  studies  daily  the  progress  of  his 
art,  but  fails  to  apply  more  than  casual 
thought  to  the  profession  of  living. 

It  is  a  strange  contradiction  that  we  give 

Our  Service  to  imperfect  being  a  service  in  this  art  of 

fect^Behiff     ^^^®  which  we  fail  to  give  to  being  which  has 

in  it  the  potentialities  of  perfection.     Upon 

6 


FOREWORD 

a  child  who  is  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind  has 
been  lavished  the  concentrated  skill  of  the 
most  able  people,  consciously  artists,  devel- 
oping from  this  deprived  and  denied  life,  at 
any  cost,  the  fullest  fruition  of  which  there 
is  capability  within  it.  This  process  has 
been  watched  by  thousands  of  sympathizing 
people,  and  its  fair  flower  is  one  of  the  tri- 
umphs of  the  true  Christliness  of  our  day 
and  generation.  The  education  of  the  blind, 
of  the  deaf  and  dumb,  of  the  half-witted,  is 
more  a  matter  of  studied  art  than  the  educa- 
tion of  our  full-facultied  millions  of  children. 
Our  care  for  the  insane  is  better  than  our 
care  for  the  sane.  The  sanitation  of  prisons 
and  asylums  is  better  than  that  of  most  houses 
in  which  people  live  who  have  money  enough 
to  live  "  well.'*  If  we  would  but  study  our 
own  race  with  the  close  observation  we  should 
give  to  an  inhabitant  of  Mars,  should  the 
developing  telescope  discover  such  a  being, 
and  on  such  study  build  our  living,  what 
revelation  and  revolution  would  come  into 
human  life ! 

The  wise  Greeks,  training   the   body  to 
health,  and  the  soul  to  joy,  knew  life  as  an  art.  The  wise 
The  games  of  Greece  were  the  school  of  the  ^^®®^s 
7 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

nation.  Here  Nature  was  aided  to  do  her 
best,  and  the  joy  of  a  whole  people  approved 
a  perfect  boy  like  Sophocles,  and  helped  to 
round  his  manhood  into  that  wholeness  of 
life  of  which  afterward  the  Roman  poet  sang. 
Selecting  the  best  in  Nature,  the  Greeks 
produced  the  Ideal.  The  abiding  art  of  Phi- 
dias, sublime  in  its  simplicity,  came  from  the 
simple  and  rounded  wholesomeness  of  Greek 
life,  in  which  the  world  before  Christ  flow- 
ered. But  it  was  the  flower  of  the  physical 
and  intellectual  life,  not  of  the  life  spiritual. 
Afterward,  among  the  Galilean  hills,  there 

The  perfect  was  sown  the  seed  of  a  new  flowering  of  life. 

Liife  That  seed  has  not  yet  had  its  full  blossoming 

into  the  flower  of  perfect  life.  The  Christian 
world  has  yet  to  take  into  its  deeper  and 
broader  and  richer  and  higher  life  much 
that  the  Greeks  knew.  Their  temples  were 
built  white  in  the  sunshine,  leading  in  earth- 
lines  to  the  shrine  of  the  golden  goddess. 
Ours  spring  from  the  gloom  of  high  arches, 
pointing  by  heaven-lines,  in  spires  that  pierce 
the  lower  clouds,  to  the  abiding-place  of  One 
above  all  and  beyond  all.  To  us  life  cannot 
be  complete.  But  it  can  be  abundant.  We 
also  must  study  Nature  to  produce  the  Ideal, 
and  realize  our  statue  in  mankind. 
8 


FOREWORD 

Whoso  masters  life  is  the  happy  man.  The 
Master  of  Life,  in  blessing  his  disciples,  Life  more 
prayed  that  they  might  have  "  life  more  abundantly 
abundantly."  That  other  men  may  have 
more  of  life,  lovers  of  their  race  have  toiled 
and  martyrs  have  laid  down  their  lives ;  and 
to  those  men  and  women  who  wish  to  fulfill 
life,  to  have  life  more  abundantly  for  them- 
selves and  to  obtain  more  abundant  life  for 
others,  the  study  of  the  arts  of  life  is  the 
highest  of  studies.  In  fullness  of  life,  life  is 
worth  the  living. 


9 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

[HE  most  important  fact  that  a 
man  can  make  part  of  his  being  The  first 
is  this,  that  the  first  steps  of  fjgi^i^^^g 
right  living  in  the  personal  life 
are  in  line  with  the  ultimates  of 
the  universe.  For  all  things  work  together 
for  good  and  make  for  righteousness,  —  in 
the  home,  in  the  nation,  for  mankind,  —  only 
as  individual  lives  work  out  their  own  salva- 
tion by  accepting  the  personal  responsibility 
of  the  individual,  within  the  limitations  of  his 
environment.  It  is  simpler  to  say  that  the 
firsts  and  lasts  in  the  arts  of  life  are  faith, 
duty,  content.  The  one  is  the  scientific,  the 
other  the  religious  form  of  the  like  truth. 
For  faith,  duty,  content  are  as  much  scien- 
tific needs  as  religious  virtues. 

For  faith,  "  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen,"  is  the  product,  as  regards  the  world  of  Faith 
nature,  of  "  the  scientific  use  of  the  imagina- 
tion." Through  it  we  come  to  know  that 
the  same  law  which  brings  the  apple  to  the 
ground  holds  the  whirling  earth  in  its  place, 
and  that  in  the  moral  as  in  the  natural  world 
effect  follows  cause,  alike  in  the  mysterious 
13 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

succession  of  human  life  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  in  the  flow  of  human  influence 
from  spirit  to  spirit.  Thus  a  scientific  faith, 
based  on  knowledge,  is  the  binding  quality 
which,  in  the  finite  mind,  links  the  human 
atom  in  the  universe,  so  that  it  vibrates  in 
harmony  with  that  *'  music  of  the  spheres  " 
of  which  Plato  dreamed. 

And  duty  is  simply  the  rightful  application 
Duty  of  the  scientific  fact  that  each  atom,  being 
thus  linked  in  the  universe,  counts.  In 
practical  life  there  is  no  court  which  can 
judge  more  justly,  or  effect  its  decrees  more 
surely,  than  the  great  court  of  the  people 
which  is  voiced  in  "public  opinion;"  and 
public  opinion,  like  the  universe,  is  made  up 
of  individual  atoms.  It  is  not  for  any  man 
to  say  whether  he  will  count  one, —  he  must 
count  one,  for  good  or  for  ill,  —  but  in  what 
direction  and  to  what  purpose  he  will  count. 
It  is  thus  that  crimes  can  be  punished  and 
evils  prevented  which  no  laws  can  reach.  It 
is  thus  also  by  one  man's  doing  his  duty, 
whether  other  people  do  or  do  not  do  theirs, 
that  wealth  can  be  rightly  gained  and  gov- 
ernment be  rightly  ordered  and  the  healing 
of  the  nations  be  assured. 

And  content  is  the  recognition  of  and  re- 
14 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

conciliation  with  human  limitations  —  the  Content 
limitations  of  humanity  in  the  human  soul ; 
the  limitations  of  the  particular  man  in  his 
particular  place.  It  is  for  that  art  of  life,  called 
religion,  which  deals  with  the  spirituality  of 
man,  to  discern  the  greater  limitations.  But 
apart  from  the  knowing  or  unknowing  of  the 
First  Cause,  there  are  everywhere  limitations 
that  forbid  an  ultimate  generalization  and  a 
complete  definition.  "  Every  rule  has  its  ex- 
ception," says  the  proverb  ;  and  a  principle, 
pushed  to  an  ultimate  analysis  beyond  its 
proper  limitations,  becomes  too  often  a  reduc- 
tio  ad  absurdum.  The  endeavor  to  find  a 
single  basis  of  philosophy  or  adequate  state- 
ment of  human  relations  in  such  words  as 
idealism  or  materialism,  as  predestination  or 
free-will,  as  utility  or  self-interest,  is  and  must 
be  in  measure  fruitless,  in  measure  worse,  and 
more  often  than  not  it  resolves  itself  into 
disastrous  quarrel  of  nomenclature.  Human 
life,  and  human  lives,  are  relatives,  not  ab- 
solutes, in  relation  to  the  final  things. 

But  as  regards  the  every-day  things,  they 
are  absolute  enough  for  practical  purposes  of  A  sufficient 
every-day   living.      Despite  the  predestina-  free-will 
tion   recognized   by  science  in  heredity,  in 
environment,  in  circumstance,  science  finds 
15 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

in  self -culture  of  motive  a  sufficient  basis  for 
free-will,  and  "  your  own  conscience  "  recog- 
nizes always  a  middle  ground  of  practical, 
personal  responsibility.  Heredity  and  cir- 
cumstance are  limitations  within  which  every 
volition  nevertheless  counts.  The  cases  are 
few  in  which  man  may  not  discern  an  ought 
and  an  ought  not. 

One  of  the  best  things  that  a  man  can  do 
The  Ideas  for  himself  and  for  his  kind  is  to  bring  clearly 
Life  ^  '"^®  into  his  own  conscious  acceptance  and  into 
that  of  other  men  the  ideas  which  should 
inspire  and  control  life.  It  is  true  that  it 
takes  a  long  time  to  get  a  thought,  through 
our  minds,  into  our  being.  To  assimilate 
new  motives  of  action  into  daily  life  is  no 
miracle  of  a  moment.  But  sooner  or  later 
this  is  done.  Ideas  rule  motives,  and  motives 
rule  life.  Thought,  will,  action,  are  the  suc- 
cessive steps  through  which  the  human  spirit 
fulfills  itself.  After  a  time,  perhaps  after  a 
generation  has  passed  away,  the  idea  which 
was  at  first  intellectually  apprehended  be- 
comes livingly  apprehended ;  the  muscles 
respond  to  it  almost  without  volition,  as  to 
heat  or  light.  It  is  in  the  life-blood  of  the 
new  generation.  This  is  progress.  And  to 
i6 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

make  sure  of  progress,  the  soldier  should  see 
the  flag  he  is  to  follow  and  for  which  he  is 
to  stand. 

The  direction  of  an  age  comes  to  it  often 
from  the  closets  of  its  students  or  from  the  The  Func- 
graves  which  seem  to  have  sealed  their  scho°ar^^ 
speech.  Thence  the  book,  the  still  small 
voice  which  speaks  from  silence  into  silence, 
carries  thought  into  the  wills  of  men.  This 
is  the  use  of  a  real  book  :  it  kindles  a  flame, 
that  from  its  light  other  lights  may  be  lighted 
forever.  It  is  the  final  function  of  the  scholar 
to  inform  his  fellow  men  how  they  may  help 
or  hinder  progress.  In  those  far  towers  of 
outlook  whence  the  quiet  generals  of  thought 
command  the  battlefields,  not  of  war  but  of 
peace,  the  truest  service  is  done.  This  is 
the  business  in  the  world  of  the  scholar,  to 
divert  men  from  the  discouragement  and 
waste  of  ill-directed  effort  and  to  enlist  them 
in  line  with  the  coordinating  forces  of  nature 
and  human  development ;  to  reduce  the  use- 
less and  destructive  activity  thrown  ignorantly 
or  carelessly  counter  to  progress,  and  to 
stimulate  common  endeavor  in  the  line  of 
ascertainable  advance.  With  this  purpose, 
by  the  aid  of  the  scientific  method  on  which 
he  relies  to  verify  progress,  history,  the 
17 


A  leading 
Thought  as 
ruling 
Motive 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

study  of  the  past,  becomes  to  the  scholar,  as 
sociology,  a  science  of  the  present  which 
gives  the  key  to  the  future.  He  is  enabled 
to  study  and  discern  his  own  age,  as  he  has 
studied  those  gone  by.  The  thinker  who  can 
reach  the  ideas  which  sway  his  time,  to  the 
correction  of  those  which  are  ill  and  the  pro- 
motion and  diffusion  of  those  which  are  good 
in  tendency,  gives  to  progress  an  intelligent 
impetus  that  speeds  the  world.  And  in  edu- 
cing these  ideas  and  bringing  them  into 
the  domain  of  will,  he  makes  sociology  an 
art,  and  performs  a  work  with  which  that  of 
the  politician  does  not  compare.  He  is  the 
true  leader,  —  not  statesman  only,  but  worlds- 
man. 

Thus  an  age  is  fashioned  in  its  ideas. 
Commonly  at  the  root  of  these  there  may  be 
found,  in  a  great  age,  a  leading  thought, 
which  produces  the  ruling  motive.  This  is 
the  soul  of  the  age,  and  moulds  its  life  and 
history  as  the  human  soul  conforms  the  body 
to  be  the  outward  expression  of  itself.  The 
search  for  it  makes  history  a  study  in  psy- 
chology. It  may  be  the  splendid  inspiration 
of  one  great  man ;  it  may  be  the  outgrowth 
of  a  school ;  it  may  be  the  voicing  of  the 
vague  yearnings  of  the  mass  ;  it  may  be  un- 
i8 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

voiced,  yet  potent.     However  it  be  produced, 
it  gives  to  the  age  its  character. 

Upon  the  strength  and  positiveness  of  its 
guiding  thought  the  greatness  and  influence  The  Age- 
of  an  age  depend.  The  positive  idea  of  the  *^°^S^* 
Protestant  era,  the  supremacy  of  the  indi- 
vidual conscience,  made  its  age  glorious,  and 
gave  birth  to  liberty.  The  development  of 
science  marks  ours  as  the  scientific  age. 
According  as  we  find  or  do  not  find  in  sci- 
ence a  positive  and  permeative  thought,  we 
may  hope  or  fear  for  the  age  in  which  we 
live.  And  this  is  above  all  important.  For 
if  we  cannot  hope  for  our  age,  it  is  hard  to 
work  in  it. 

If,  then,  ideas  rule,  and  a  great  age  has  its 
guiding  idea,  the  first  step  of  the  reconcilia-  Ours  a 
tion  of  the  individual  man  with  all  about  him,  ^j^^^"^® 
the  key  to  much  that  constitutes  individual 
happiness,  is  that  he  should  recognize  this 
idea,  and  feel  himself  part  of  the  great  age. 
And  surely  all  auguries  prophesy  the  coming 
century  as  a  supreme  era.  The  poets  would 
have  us  sing  with  them  a  golden  age,  which 
never  was  ;  science  foresees  it  in  the  future, 
if  we  will  work,  in  hope,  for  its  coming.  The 
students  of  centuries  speak  with  no  uncer- 
19 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

tain  voice  :  the  world  has  never  truly  turned 
backward. 

In  five  hundred  years  there  has  been  a 

Five  Hun-     progress  unexampled  in  all  the  previous  past. 

dred  Years  ^  grand  progression  it  has  been  —  Colum- 
bus followed  by  Magellan ;  and  Gutenberg 
by  Luther ;  and  Copernicus  by  Galileo  and 
Kepler  and  Newton ;  and  Bacon  by  Darwin 
and  Spencer ;  and  Watt  by  Stephenson  and 
Fulton  and  Hoe  ;  and  Franklin  by  Henry 
and  Morse  and  Bell  and  Edison  ;  and  Peel 
by  Gladstone,  and  Washington  by  Lincoln. 
The  wedding  of  the  old  and  new  continents 
and  the  perfecting  of  the  world  into  a  rounded 
whole,  the  declaration  of  our  earth's  true 
relations  with  the  universe;  the  enlargement 
of  knowledge  by  the  inductive  reasoning ; 
the  Protestant  emancipation  of  thought ;  the 
impetus  given  to  intellectual  activity  by  the 
invention  of  printing  and  to  material  activity 
by  the  application  of  steam  ;  the  second  uni- 
fication of  the  world  by  means  of  the  rail- 
road, the  steamboat,  the  newspaper,  the  tele- 
graph, and  the  telephone  ;  the  political  growth 
which  has  developed  a  true  government  by 
the  people,  —  would  seem  to  culminate  in 
the  age  upon  which  we  are  entering  as  that 
of  most  importance  in  the  world's  long  his- 
20 


FIRSTS   AND    LASTS 

tory.  Knowledge  is  groping  toward  unity, 
and  the  race  is  becoming  one.  It  is  grand 
to  breathe  the  air  of  such  an  era. 

It  is,  then,  the  question  of  questions  whe- 
ther, in  this  scientific  age,  in  these  times  of  Principles 
transition  and  doubt,  some  permanent  prin-  T^ansSon 
ciples  may  be  discerned  in  social  and  reli- 
gious relations  making  for  progress  and  faith. 
And  the  signs  of  the  times  make  answer, 
—  that  in  our  day  various  lines  of  historic 
progress,  especially  the  development  of  in- 
ventions which  bring  natural  forces  into  line 
with  human  progress,  and  the  unitizing  of 
knowledge  by  means  of  the  comparative 
method,  combine  and  culminate  to  make  the 
world  and  humankind  for  the  first  time  prac- 
tically one.  That  this  process  has  been  ac- 
companied, necessarily,  by  such  sundering  of 
old  ties,  in  social,  political,  and  religious  rela- 
tions, as  to  leave  humankind  in  the  danger- 
ous disintegration  of  atoms  combined  only 
in  the  unstable  equilibrium  of  explosives  — 
"  every  man  for  himself,  and  the  devil  take 
the  hindmost  "  —  which  presents  the  dark 
side  of  the  picture.  That  in  this  centrifugal 
condition  of  things,  the  centripetal  force 
needed  is  to  be  found  in  the  new  importance 

21 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

developed  by  science  for  the  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  and  correlation  of  forces,  which 
becomes  in  philosophy  the  necessary  and 
eternal  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  and  in 
morals  the  like  doctrine  of  personal  respon- 
sibility. 

It  is  all  important,  then,  to  consider  what 
A  common  may  be  and  will  be  the  practical  applications 
Ground  ^£  ^j^jg  newly  emphasized  doctrine  to  current 

problems  in  the  arts  of  life,  in  education, 
business,  politics,  and  religion.  It  may  be 
that,  as  regards  government,  this  doctrine  is 
potent  to  meet  dreaded  results  of  universal 
suffrage,  and  that  as  regards  religion,  its 
professional  apostles  must  fulfill  more  com- 
pletely the  present  tendency  to  join  with 
morality  and  science  in  emphasizing  good 
life  as  the  primal  basis,  —  a  common  ground 
on  which  those  may  meet  who  believe  in  a 
revealed  God,  or  who  discern  only  Nature's 
good  ;  who  see  no  farther  than  this  life  of 
passing  opportunities,  or  who  look  for  a  life 
to  come. 

The  conditions  which  have  made  possible 

The  Es-        the  modern  kind  of  progress  are  to  be  traced 

Christianity  ^^  ^^^  giving  of  that  catholic  religion  which 

offered  equal  terms  to  all  men,  wheresoever 

22 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

upon  the  earth.  The  very  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity is  the  equal  and  direct  never-to-be- 
delegated  responsibility  of  all  men,  that  is, 
of  each  man,  as  children  of  the  All-Father, 
through  that  individual  conscience  by  which 
the  good  of  Nature  becomes  the  God  in 
man.  This  central  thought,  sown  in  the  par- 
ables of  the  Master,  brought  into  practical 
life  through  the  vision  of  Peter,  and  devel- 
oped into  full  significance  in  the  preaching 
of  Paul,  contained  two  elements,  an  oppor-  AnOpportu- 
tunity  and  a  responsibility,  whose  interac-  Resp^ns^ 
tion  has  resulted  in  the  modern  world.  In  bility 
asserting  the  immediate  relation  of  men  to 
God,  and  the  consequent  supremacy  of  indi- 
vidual conscience,  as  against  traditionary 
superstition  and  the  despotism  of  priestly 
mediation,  Christianity  freed  intellect  as  well 
as  soul,  and  compelled  men  to  liberty  of 
thought.  In  proclaiming  the  actual  brother- 
hood of  man  on  this  wide  earth,  it  furnished 
motive  and  occasion  for  completing  our  know- 
ledge of  the  world  and  realizing  the  union  of 
mankind,  and  called  each  man  to  his  respon- 
sibility for  the  race.  And  it  is  this  oppor- 
tunity of  liberty  and  this  responsibility  of 
unity  which  have  produced  to-day. 

This  religion  was  not  spared  the  conven- 
23 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

The  Con-  tionalizing  tendency  which  attacks  all  human 
Tzlng^"*^"  processes,  and  the  germ  of  liberty  lay  dor- 
Tendency  mant  a  thousand  years  while  a  priestly 
hierarchy,  surviving  in  Christianity  despite 
Christianity,  usurped  the  offices  of  individual 
religion  and  the  authority  vested  only  in  in- 
dividual conscience.  The  other  phase  of  the 
central  doctrine  could  be  better  bent  to  the 
purposes  of  priestship,  and  remained  active. 
The  Church  gladly  acknowledged  responsi- 
bility for  the  race,  because  it  offered  spiritual 
occasion  for  material  conquests  ;  and  Colum- 
bus, carrying  the  cross  at  his  prow,  achieved 
the  first  step  towards  the  material  unity  of 
mankind.  But  liberty  was  reasserted  only  by 
revolution  ;  it  was  left  to  those  Reformers 
whom  we  know  best  in  Luther,  by  defying  a 
church  which  was  not  Christianity  and  set- 
ting conscience  again  upon  its  throne,  to 
rescue  for  a  new  world  the  opportunity  of 
liberty  of  thought. 

The  first  link  in  the  chain  of  unity  was  the 
The  Chain     moral  unity  of  mankind  fully  preached  by 
o     nity        p^^i .  ^j^^  second  was  the  material  unity  of 
which  the  first  practical  step  was  the  dis- 
covery by  Columbus,  and  the  latest  has  been 
the  invention  of  the  telephone.     The  wed- 
24 


FIRSTS    AND   LASTS 

ding  of  the  "  old  "  and  the  "  new  "  continents 
was  followed  by  the  rounding  of  the  world 
into  perfected  unity,  through  the  circum- 
navigation by  Magellan.  Exploration,  which 
raged  as  a  fever,  was  followed  by  coloniza- 
tion, and  thus  began  the  fusion  of  races  and 
of  social  conditions.  Commerce,  the  great 
unionist,  sought  out  every  corner  of  the  earth. 
And  now  the  effect  of  the  freeing  of  thought, 
in  mastering  the  forces  of  Nature  for  the 
use  of  man,  began  to  find  application  to  this  Progress  in 
progress  in  material  unity :  he  who  put  the  unitv^*^ 
magnetic  needle  in  its  box  had  made  ocean 
exploration  possible ;  the  development  of  the 
chronometer  and  other  instruments  of  navi- 
gation made  ocean  voyaging  sure.  It  was  left 
to  Watt,  in  making  the  steam-engine  prac- 
tical, and  to  those  inventors  represented 
by  the  names  of  Stephenson  and  Fulton,  in 
applying  it  to  locomotion  by  land  and  sea, 
to  achieve  the  next  steps  in  material  unity, 
by  enabling  man  to  transport  himself  at  will, 
against  time  and  tide,  to  any  part  of  the 
world.  The  photograph  performs  the  oppo- 
site service  of  bringing  any  part  of  the  world 
before  the  eye,  and  thus  contributes  to  our 
familiar  realization  of  the  unity  of  earth  and 
of  man.  Printing,  the  great  stride  forward 
25 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

to  intellectual  unity,  in  its  development  of 
the  book  and  newspaper,  has  assisted  material 
unity  as  well.  Finally,  the  telegraph,  cir- 
cling the  earth,  and  the  telephone,  annihilat- 
ing distance  and  time,  have  completed  the 
work,  so  that  in  our  era  man  for  the  first 
time  feels  the  throb  of  all  humanity.  The 
nations  are  neighbors  and  kinsfolk.  Man 
has  to-day  all  the  wide  earth  for  his  environ- 
ment ;  the  most  frequent  act  of  every-day  life 
is  predicated  on  the  previous  concurrence  of 
the  world  at  large.  All  the  world  contributes 
to  the  breakfast-table  of  each  civilized  man, 
and  the  whole  earth  is  brought  within  the 
compass  of  his  room  in  his  morning  paper. 
Codrdinate  with  all  this  is  the  unification 
The  Unifi-  of  knowledge.  The  freeing  of  thought  led  at 
Knowledge  ^^^^  ^^  Steps  in  this  direction.  Copernicus' 
work  on  the  true  relations  of  the  sun  and 
planets  was  published' soon  after  the  early 
stirrings  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany ;  but 
it  was  left  to  the  next  century  to  make  the 
grand  advance,  when  Galileo  laid  the  founda- 
tion for  experimental  physics  and  reasserted 
the  true  relations  of  the  earth ;  when  Bacon 
emphasized  the  inductive  method  and  pro- 
claimed the  essential  unity  of  knowledges  and 
their  revealing  inter-relations ;  when  Kepler 
26 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

calculated  the  uniform  laws  of  planetary  mo- 
tion; when  Newton  discovered  the  binding 
law  which  makes  the  universe  one.  These 
grand  achievements  prepared  the  way  for  that 
comparative  method  which,  presupposing  and  The  com- 
proving  the  principle  of  unity,  underlies  now  Method 
every  department  of  physical  and  metaphysi- 
cal research,  and  affords  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  modern  science.  "  The  estab- 
lishment of  the  comparative  method  of  study 
has  been  the  greatest  intellectual  achieve- 
ment of  our  time.  It  has  carried  light  and 
order  into  whole  branches  of  human  know- 
ledge which  were  before  shrouded  in  dark- 
ness and  confusion.  It  has  brought  a  line  of 
argument  which  reaches  moral  certainty  into 
a  region  which  before  was  given  over  to  ran- 
dom guesswork."  The  new  chemistry  finds 
that  all  molecules  obey  one  law,  and  hints 
that  the  ultimate  atoms  of  all  substances  may 
be  the  same ;  physics  teaches  in  the  correla- 
tion of  forces  that  there  is  one  force,  however 
protean  in  shape  ;  physiology  finds  in  its  doc- 
trine of  bioplasm  one  foundation  for  all  bodily 
life,  and  in  the  biological  sciences  in  general 
—  botany,  zoology,  and  their  like  —  the  in- 
dividual invention  of  "systems"  of  classifica- 
tion has  given  place  to  comparative  research 
27 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

for  the  one  plan  by  which  it  is  found  Nature 
has  wrought  out  all.  And  this  passion  of 
science  for  a  complete  generalization,  upward, 
and  for  an  ultimate  analysis,  downward,  finds 
its  culmination  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
which  links  together  all  creation  into  an  or- 
ganic whole,  from  the  nebular  mist  of  inchoate 
stars  to  the  infinite  variety  of  our  human 
earth ;  from  the  simplest  germ  of  the  cell  to 
the  highest  splendor  of  humanity.  The  word 
"universe"  has  new  meaning  for  us  in  the 
fresh  wonder  of  these  turnings  of  the  one. 
Finally,  we  have  reached  out  by  similar 
The  Unity  Steps  into  social  unity.  There  is  a  growing 
of  Society  sympathy  with  all  mankind  and  all  its  past. 
The  same  comparative  method  that  has  done 
so  much  to  disclose  the  unity  of  nature  and 
of  knowledge  helps  us  also  to  the  unity  of 
society.  Comparative  philology  has  given  us 
a  light  which  shines  clear  into  hitherto  im- 
penetrable darkness,  and  leads  us  up  to  the 
unity  in  diversity  of  tongues  and  races.  Com- 
parative politics,  sociology,  the  new  science 
of  history — as  much  an  advance  on  Schlegel's 
philosophy  of  history  as  was  that  on  the  bare 
chronicles  of  kings  and  battles  —  relate  the 
civilized  man  in  new  ties  of  likeness,  and 
therefore  of  kinship  and  concern,  with  the 
28 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

most  savage.  We  recognize  all  men  as  men, 
and  no  longer  hold  slaves.  Comparative  reli- 
gion is  doing  true  service  in  bringing  the  good 
to  light  from  the  old  mythologies  and  heathen 
religions,  and  not  only  disclosing  a  general 
worship  of  a  true  Supreme  Being,  but  show- 
ing evil  and  its  incarnation  as  the  shadow  of 
good.  Religious  development  links  this  life 
with  a  future  life  in  logical  if  not  proven 
unity.  And  even  Positivism,  in  proclaiming 
its  idea  of  humanity,  emphasizes  usefully  the 
Christian  doctrines  of  unity  and  responsi- 
bility. 

Such  are  the  considerations  that  suggest 
gratification  with  our  age,  but  this  is  at  once  The  darker 
tempered  and  clouded  with  conditions  that  ^^^® 
lead  many  to  despair.  The  opening  of  the 
world  has  sundered  men  from  the  useful  re- 
strictions of  their  local  environment.  The 
development  of  society  has  substituted  a  com- 
plex for  a  simple  life,  and,  in  endeavoring  to 
improve  upon  Nature,  has  introduced  a  train 
of  ills.  The  widening  of  knowledge  has  led 
to  no  little  perplexity  of  thought  and  action, 
and  the  coordinate  growth  of  the  critical 
spirit  seems,  to  some,  to  dampen  delight  in 
life  and  sap  faith.  The  unity  of  man  seems 
29 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 


The  pessi- 
mist View 


The  Solu- 
tion of  Dis- 
courage- 
ment 


to  have  been  accomplished  at  the  expense  of 
the  disintegrated  atoms. 

To  the  extreme  pessimist,  indeed,  these 
difficulties  rob  life  of  worth,  and  make  the 
life  of  the  oyster,  ending  in  a  Nirvana,  a  happy- 
refuge  from  modern  progress.  In  this  view, 
the  world  has  grown  wiser  only  to  grow 
worse ;  the  more  we  know,  the  less  we  be- 
lieve ;  the  more  rules  of  life  we  discover,  the 
less  we  regard  them.  To  such,  civilization  is 
scarcely  less  than  a  crime,  and  science  a  sin. 
The  savant  is  no  better  off  than  the  savage ; 
the  twentieth  century  after  Christ  will  have 
little  more  to  show,  when  the  balances  are 
struck,  than  the  twentieth  century  before 
Him.  Every  age  is  as  ill  off  as  its  prede- 
cessors ;  as  between  God  and  the  Devil,  the 
latter  is  the  supreme  Deity  and  has  the  best 
of  it. 

Now  much  of  this  discouragement  is  dis- 
couraging, yet  the  key  to  its  solution  is  found 
in  the  very  elevation  of  the  race.  Each  age 
sets  itself  a  higher  standard  than  the  standard 
from  which  it  started,  and,  judging  itself  by 
its  failure  from  the  higher,  rather  than  by  its 
advance  from  the  lower,  finds  reason  to  think 
ill  of  itself.  It  is  the  same  process  by  which 
the  "upper"  classes  of  society  attribute  to 
30 


and  Misdi- 
rections 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

the  "lower"  classes  wants  which  these  do 
not  feel,  and  so  predicate  an  unhappiness  of 
which  they  are  by  no  means  conscious,  and 
which,  therefore,  does  not  for  them  exist.  The 
ideal  of  our  civilization  is  to  prolong  life  and 
diffuse  comfort.  In  reaching  toward  that 
ideal,  there  have  been  much  mistaken  legisla-  Mistakes 
tion  and  much  misdirected  kindness  :  we  have 
prolonged  lives  that  are  sickly  and  miserable, 
permitting  them  to  propagate  sickness  and 
misery;  and  Christian  charity,  mistakenly 
applied,  has  increased  pauperism.  We  see 
men  unhappy,  working  at  noisome  work  and 
under  ill  conditions,  and  on  their  behalf  we 
envy  the  Greek  and  the  savage.  But  for  the 
Greek  of  history  toiled  the  slave  of  whom 
history  does  not  tell :  the  marble  of  the  Par- 
thenon came  from  quarries  where  men  labored 
in  despair,  and  the  gold  for  Athen^  from  toil 
as  sad  and  difficult  as  our  own.  The  savage 
suffered  cold  and  storm  and  pestilence  ;  the 
savage  starved ;  the  savage  died  before  his 
time.  We  think  of  the  past  from  the  pomp 
that  gets  into  the  books  ;  we  know  the  pre- 
sent from  the  misery  at  our  doors.  And  we 
forget,  also,  that  even  among  the  most  miser- 
able there  are  few  to  whom  life  is  not  the 
greatest  of  boons  and  its  prolongation  the 
31 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

greatest  blessing.  Civilization  accepts  that 
view,  and  can  verify  progress  even  in  its  dis- 
couragements. But  these  are  not  for  that 
reason  to  be  ignored. 


Old-time 
Relations 


Centrifugal 
Tendencies 


A  chief  difficulty  is  illustrated  by  the  per- 
sonal relationship  among  individuals.  The 
simple  living  of  earlier  times  held  men  to- 
gether by  ties  which  were  closer  and  stronger 
because  they  were  few.  The  community  was 
small,  and  the  individual  had  scarce  any  rela- 
tions beyond  it.  The  few  people  whom  each 
knew,  he  knew  all  about ;  there  was  a  di- 
rect relationship  that  had  its  bad  side  in  the 
prying  gossip  of  small  places,  but  its  good 
side  in  a  strong  feeling  of  association  and 
responsibility.  There  were  "  fireside  indus- 
tries." The  family  was  not  yet  disassociated 
from  the  neighborhood,  and  scattered  abroad. 
A  man  was  '*  tied  to  the  apron-string  "  of  his 
mother-home,  safe  within  the  somewhat  nar- 
row limits  of  that  circumscribing  radius. 
Modern  ways  have  changed  all  that :  and 
with  increase  of  the  number  of  relationships 
their  vitality  seems  to  have  been  decreased. 

Particularly  there  is  evident  a  weakening 
and  sundering  of  the  old  ties  which  bound 
men  effectively  together  into  small  organ- 
32 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

isms,  useful  in  their  intermediary  function 
in  the  state  —  the  family,  the  neighborhood, 
the  trade  guild,  the  self-governing  political 
unit.  The  disintegration  of  these  concentra- 
tive  organisms  is  very  marked  in  this  gener- 
ation and  in  our  own  country.  The  weaken- 
ing of  family  and  household  ties,  which  were 
the  basis  and  furnished  the  intermediary 
body  of  early  institutions,  caused  in  part  by 
a  wider  marriage  system  which  has  mingled 
qualities  and  produced  better  individual  re- 
sults, has  dissipated  a  strong  social  and  po- 
litical bond  into  a  mere  genealogical  senti- 
ment. Collateral  family  relationship,  in 
particular,  has  no  longer  much  force.  This 
is  largely  the  result  of  the  breaking  of  local 
ties  by  the  increased  facilities  of  locomotion. 
The  boy  transplants  himself,  or  the  young 
man  takes  his  bride,  a  thousand  miles  from 
the  old  home  and  its  countless  ties  of  local 
association,  and  by  similar  processes  a  nation 
is  formed  while  neighborhoods  are  dissolved. 
The  modern  division  of  labor  produces  a 
double  result  in  the  same  .direction.  It  makes  The  Divi- 
us  dependent  upon  more  people,  as  workers.  Labor 
but  it  separates  us  from  them  as  men.  The 
"  hand,"  in  a  great  manufactory,  doing  one 
thjng  that  has  but  indirect  relation  to  the 
33 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

want  of  his  fellow  man,  is  cut  off  from  any 
relationship  with  the  man  who  will  use  his 
work ;  and  the  employer  and  the  employed 
are  separated  also  by  as  many  steps.  The 
selection,  by  this  division  of  labor,  of  the 
most  effective  men  for  the  great  posts  has 
also  overburdened  them  with  many  responsi- 
bilities, until,  it  may  be,  having  too  many 
interests  to  oversee,  the  captain  of  industry 
is  separated  from  and  overlooks  some. 

And  in  our  country,  the  results  of  the 
The  Results  civil  war,  of  the  succeeding  inflation,  of  the 
of  War  speculative   dealing   in   fictitious   values   so 

long  rampant,  of  the  wonderful  development 
of  trade  in  general,  suddenly  elevating  to  un- 
accustomed riches  considerable  numbers  of 
men  and  isolating  a  few  of  enormous  fortune, 
have  also  set  men  loose  from  the  environ- 
ment to  which  before  they  were  attached. 
Politically,  also,  since  the  war  for  the  Union, 
men  are  less  citizens  of  a  State,  but,  over- 
looking the  narrower  bounds,  more  citizens 
of  the  Nation.  The  tendency  of  Protestant- 
ism itself  is  to  dispense  with  intermediary 
relations,  to  have  nothing  between  a  man 
and  his  God.  Thus  society  has  become  a 
fluent  mass  of  individualized  atoms. 


34 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

But  it  is  precisely  as  the  atoms  become 
fluent  that  the  centripetal  force  successfully  Centripetal 
meets  the  centrifugal  tendency  :  the  waters  of  Principles 
the  sea  are  the  most  abiding  thing  in  Nature. 
And  where  physical  and  incidental  bonds  of 
unity  fail,  it  is  to  higher  principles  of  moral 
gravitation  that  we  look.  The  higher  the  re- 
lation the  more  does  it  emerge  from  the  do- 
main of  predestination,  of  blind  chance,  into 
that  of  the  conscious  choice  of  men.  Pro- 
gress is  made  through  men  :  at  this  last,  the 
Divine  has  no  other  agent  than  the  Human. 
This  throws  upon  mankind,  upon  the  indi- 
vidual man,  upon  the  higher  man,  the  re- 
sponsibility of  promoting  progress,  and  of 
tempering  the  dangers  which  accompany  its 
advance. 

For  progress,  like  other  forces,  follows  the 
wave  line.  The  principle  of  limitations  is  The  Wave 
again  seen  in  the  workings  of  the  causes  pJogr^^gs 
which  make  for  progress.  They  work  well 
so  far :  after  a  certain  development,  or  if 
pushed  too  far,  they  work  ill,  they  become 
inefficient,  they  are  counterbalanced  or  cease. 
Thus  human  development  pursues  the  wave 
line  ;  the  drop  of  water  goes  down  as  well  as 
up  to  meet  the  crest,  but  the  motion  is  on- 
ward ;  an  improvement  in  machinery  throws 
35 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

some  one  for  the  time  out  of  work;  wars 
that  achieve  liberty  maim  and  kill  and  wreak 
demoralization :  success  has  too  often  re- 
quired sacrifice. 

We  have  arrived  at  a  supreme  age,  in  which 
Progress  the  world  has  become  one  and  the  race  one, 
verifiable  ^^  action  and  in  thought ;  and  in  this  su- 
preme age  we  find  many  sad  things  and 
many  discouraging  things.  In  this  analytic 
time,  the  thinker  applies  the  cruel  dissecting 
knife  to  himself,  and  touches  the  universe  at 
no  point  but  he  draws  the  life-blood.  Never- 
theless, progress  is  verifiable.  We  have  been 
passing  through  a  critical  and  destructive 
period,  social,  industrial,  and  scientific,  to 
arrive  at  a  great  constructive  age.  The  early 
man,  in  even  greater  degree  than  the  present 
savage,  had  inherited  from  nature  certain  in- 
stincts and  a  crude  knowledge  which  fitted 
him  admirably  to  his  simple  environment. 
If  his  life  was  that  of  the  beast,  he  had  the 
instinct  of  the  beast  for  his  protection.  Both 
the  ancient  savage  and  the  crude  man  of  to- 
day rely  safely,  in  the  main,  upon  their  rea- 
sonless instincts.  A  low  order  of  life,  which 
trusts  to  and  follows  Nature,  is  to  that  extent 
healthy.  But  modern  man  may  not  be  con- 
tent with  this  infirm  and  narrow  life. 

36 


FIRSTS   AND    LASTS 

The  mission  of  man  is  not  to  submit  to 
Nature,  but  to  master  her.  He  must  emerge  Emergence 
from  the  state  of  nature  into  civilization.  But  ^ation^^^^^" 
between  the  two  there  is  dangerous  ground. 
In  the  higher  order  of  life,  reason  takes  the 
place  of  instinct,  but  the  instincts  are  apt 
to  lose  their  force  before  the  reason  is  fully 
trained  to  do  their  work  better  or  as  well. 
The  savage  had  a  keenness  of  sense,  espe- 
cially in  hearing,  that  gave  him  a  great  ad- 
vantage over  the  white  man  in  certain  fea- 
tures of  war-making,  until  the  latter  invented 
the  spyglass  and  the  telegraph.  "  Artificial 
and  conventional  have  taken  the  place  of  nat- 
ural advantages  as  the  ruling  and  deciding 
force,"  and  in  "  that  artificial  life  which  we 
call  civilization,"  it  is  by  recourse  to  the  arts 
of  life  that  we  live.  Throughout,  "  God  bal- 
ances the  new  evils  peculiar  to  human  life 
by  infinitely  greater  weights  in  the  scale  of 
the  good  which  is  also  peculiar  to  human 
life." 

This  is  the  characteristic  of  a  transition 
period.  Man  has  been  educated  out  of  his  Twilight 
instincts,  and  reason  has  not  yet  its  full  ap-  '^^^^^ 
plication.  He  is  as  a  sailing  vessel  stripped 
of  sails  and  made  into  a  steamer,  with  no  one 
on  board  who  knows  fully  how  to  manage 
37 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

the  new  mechanism.  Mankind  is  between 
lights,  and  twiUght  is  the  most  difficult  light 
for  the  eyes.  We  are  not  quite  out  of  the 
dark  ages.  Man  has  earned  his  way  to  the 
new  light,  but  in  acquiring  its  privileges,  its 
responsibilities  at  first  sight  stagger  him. 
He  is  in  the  dangerous  domain  of  half-know- 
ledge, like  the  amateur  student  of  medicine 
who  knows  symptoms  but  not  remedies,  and 
torments  his  imagination  with  hosts  of  dis- 
eases which  he  has  no  power  to  cure.  It  is 
a  real  difficulty,  and  unfortunately  the  seamy 
side  is  most  seen  by  those  within  the  problem. 
When  the  spinning-jenny  was  invented  in 
England  the  cotton  spinners  rose  in  revolt ; 
how  should  they  know  that  it  would  presently 
give  them  two  loaves  of  bread  where  before 
they  had  one  or  none.  Again,  the  newspaper, 
that  great  organ  of  progress,  has  its  bad  side 
in  spreading  the  inflaming  details  of  crime  and 
the  infection  of  commercial  panic ;  yet  even 
the  light  compels  betterment,  though  it 
brings  to  sight  the  things  of  evil. 

The  progress  of  man  is  therefore  from  a 
Progress       crude,  reasonless,  but  effective  practice,  an 
Knowledge    i^iheritance  of  his  animal  nature,  through  half- 
knowledge   and   groping    analysis,  into   full 
knowledge   and   the  appUcation  of   science. 

38 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

The  crude  endowments  of  nature  are  analyzed 
by  science,  and  the  vital  element  educed 
for  more  economical  use.  Thus  even  "  old 
wives'  fables  "  and  nostrums  are  being  turned 
to  account :  the  old  empirics  used  seaweed 
for  certain  diseases  ;  modern  science  finds 
therein  the  potash  which  was  its  remedial 
element,  and  gives  it  in  less  wasteful  form. 

These  several  lines  of  thought  conjoin  and 
culminate  in  seeking  and  finding  that  central  The  One- 
thought  which  marks  and  moulds  the  age.  *^ 
It  is  the  thought  that,  alike  in  space  and  in 
time,  in  the  material,  the  moral,  the  spiritual 
world,  the  atom  is  bound  to  every  other  atom 
by  a  one-law  which  pervades  the  universe, 
which  is  the  soul  of  all  things.  ^*No  man 
liveth  to  himself  and  no  man  dieth  to  him- 
self." Nature,  still  more  civilization,  means 
not  that  men  should  be  independent  of  each 
other,  but  vastly  interdependent,  in  an  infin- 
ity of  relations. 

Science  speaks  thus  with  no  uncertain 
voice,  to  the  listening  and  reverent  ear.  The  free 
Man  makes  pro-gress,  forward,  but  in  the  ^^^^ 
wave  line,  with  real  or  seeming  retro-gres- 
sions.  It  is  by  a  free  path  that  the  atom 
obeys  law :  as  the  drops  of  water,  making  up 
39 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  fluent  and  fluid  seas,  tossed  at  the  sur- 
face into  changing  waves  by  the  law  of  the 
winds,  obey  in  the  great  currents  the  laws  of 
heat,  in  the  greater  tides  the  attraction  of 
the  moon,  and  through  their  steadfast  depths 
that  greatest  law  of  gravitation  which  binds 
them  together  in  the  eternal  ocean.  Thus 
The    ^  the  central  and  centrifugal  forces,  many  yet 

Forces^^  one,  balance  each  other,  in  physics  and  in 
morals,  to  keep  each  atom,  though  in  free 
motion,  in  its  proper  place,  in  an  interde- 
pendence which  in  morals  means  a  responsi- 
bility of  each  for  all.  Each  atom  counts, 
everywhere,  forever.  There  can  be  no  con- 
tradictions —  between  laws,  or  between  law 
and  fact :  the  law  and  the  fact  confirm,  con- 
form to,  are  part  of,  each  other.  Natural  laws 
are  universal,  immutable, — *'thou  canst  not" 
as  well  as  "thou  shalt  not."  The  law  of  death 
is  part  of  the  larger  law  of  life,  using  what 
we  know  as  evil  as  the  corrective,  the  pur- 
gative, which  by  selective  development  pre- 
pares the  best  to  survive.  So  science  teaches 
us  to  build  on  the  past,  in  the  present,  for  the 
future  —  to  be  reverent,  to  be  content,  to  do 
our  duty,  to  have  faith. 

Thus,    in    these    modern    days,    science, 
though  too  often  unheeded,  calls  to  us,  in  our 
40 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

individual  lives,  to  come  up  higher,  to  make  The  Call  of 
life  an  art.  Arrived  at  a  great  age,  we  are  ^*=^^"*^® 
called  to  make  ourselves  great  in  accord  with 
it.  Science  sets  the  man  of  to-day  in  the 
center  of  this  world,  as  the  culmination  of  the 
forces  of  Nature,  as  the  product  of  all  the  his- 
toric forces,  and  tells  him  that  the  known 
earth,  animate  and  inanimate,  is  subject  unto 
him,  that  at  last  he  modifies  the  world  more 
than  the  world  modifies  him.  It  tells  him  also 
that  there  is  no  effect  without  cause,  and  no 
cause  without  effect ;  that  each  individual 
human  life  must  be  infinitely  effective ;  and 
that  each  life  can  be  developed  in  fullest  frui- 
tion only  by  conscious  art  founded  upon  in- 
telligent science.  The  large  forces  and  the 
little  are  the  same.  First  principles  are  final 
principles.  Man  is  come  into  a  high  place, 
to  which  all  roads  of  the  past  converge ;  be- 
fore him  all  roads  of  the  future  open  forth. 
All  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  are  before  him. 
He  must  choose.  His  choice  is  the  result  of 
his  character.  His  character  should  be  the 
result  of  art. 

Throughout  all  this  we  recognize  that  a 
human  life  is  a  product,  and  the  highest  of  Faculty  and 
products,    an    art-work.      Art    presupposes  ^^^^^^^y 
faculty  and  facility,  the  original  gift  and  the 
41 


Arts 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

purposed  training.  For  the  gift  we  are  not 
responsible,  for  its  training  we  are.  In  this 
last,  we  make  choice  of  means,  as  the  artist 
must.  This  art,  like  others,  is  founded  on 
science,  on  knowledge.  Science  underlies 
the  art  of  living  and  the  arts  of  life,  as  it 
underlies  all  art.  And  to  cultivate  life  as  an 
The  Life  art,  we  must  cultivate  the  arts  of  life.  First  of 
all  is  the  duty  of  health  —  wholeness  of  body. 
This  presupposes  mind-health  and  will-health, 
saneness  of  mind  and  rightness  of  morals. 
That  is  our  affair  —  and  the  physician  should 
be  but  the  interpreter  for  us  of  the  laws  of 
nature ;  the  watchman  who  guards  health,  not 
the  detective  who  cries  "  stop  thief,"  when  it 
is  gone ;  whose  business  is  to  prevent  disease 
rather  than  to  cure  it.  To  this  end  is  the  art  of 
education,  by  which  also  the  mind  is  stocked 
with  knowledges  and  trained  in  methods  for 
its  command  of  life ;  and  the  teacher  should 
be  the  guide  to  show  the  paths  to  the  moun- 
tain tops,  as  those  who  have  gone  before 
have  blazed  them.  Then  the  art  of  business, 
of  earning  a  living,  of  applying  to  the  affairs 
of  every  day  the  best  equipment  that  can 
be  had  for  it,  of  making  business  itself  the 
roadway  to  higher  arts  of  life,  not  the  end  of 
the  path  in  a  drainage  bog.  Then  the  art  of 
42 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

government,  the  care  of  men  in  their  larger 
relations  as  the  state.  Above  all,  the  art  of 
religion,  the  art  of  making  the  human  di- 
vine. All  these  find  their  fruition  in  per- 
sonal character  and  in  social  life,  in  the  home, 
the  family,  society,  where  love  lightens  duty 
while  knowledge  guides  it,  where  conversa- 
tion becomes  an  art  and  an  uplifting,  where 
a  man  is  refreshed  and  recreated  by  converse 
with  his  fellow  men. 

The  vital  progress  of  man  has  yet  to  come 
up  to  the  progress  of  his  intellectual  and  A  new 
material  environment,  and  his  inspiration  is  Ethics°"  ^" 
found  in  an  ethical  teaching  of  science  the 
most  positive  which  man  has  yet  discovered 
for  himself.  The  idea  of  the  infinity  of  in- 
fluence and  eternity  of  duration  of  the  effects 
of  infinitely  small  cause  gives  a  most  awe- 
ful  yet  inspiring  meaning  to  human  responsi- 
bility, and  if  not  new  is  announced  by  science 
with  such  startling  emphasis  that  it  becomes 
virtually  a  new  sanction  of  ethics.  We  are 
taught  that  every  breath  alters  the  relations 
of  the  universe  forever,  and  this  physical 
parable,  interpreted  into  ethics  and  made 
practical  in  life,  makes  each  man  infinitely 
responsible  for  every  moment,  thought,  word 
43 


Form 

temporary, 

Influence 

eternal 


Sanction 

and 

Safeguard 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

and  act  of  his  life.  Each  man  is  a  trustee 
for  the  race,  and  he  carries  within  himself 
the  sure  reward  or  penalty. 

In  this  vast  evolution,  all  organism,  of 
matter  or  of  mind,  is  a  sequence  of  changes. 
The  form  is  temporary,  the  influence  eternal. 
The  cell  dies,  but  direction  survives.  Man  is 
a  bundle  of  pasts,  consciously  making  the 
future,  —  the  sum  of  all  the  ages,  the  fount  of 
the  far  future.  Thus  science  supplies  a  sanc- 
tion and  a  safeguard,  in  this  thought  of  the 
eternity  of  influence,  more  weighty  than  all 
the  awful  Calvinism  of  an  Edwards.  It  is 
the  greatest  sanction,  to  morals  and  right 
being,  for  earth  and  heaven,  possible  to  be 
put  before  men.  It  is  the  voice  of  a  logical 
God.  The  thought  is  terrible,  were  its  re- 
sponsibility not  tempered  by  the  opportunity 
it  presents. 

A  sanction  and  a  safeguard,  both.  For 
men  require  both.  In  that  righting  book 
which  has  done  so  much  for  progress,  "  The 
Wealth  of  Nations,"  Adam  Smith  empha- 
sizes the  fear  of  the  workman  of  losing  work 
as  the  chief  motive  for  doing  work  well ;  in 
that  illuminating  book,  "Unto  this  Last," 
curious  in  its  misapplications  of  high  truth, 
Ruskin  characterizes  this  opinion  as  illustrat- 
44 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

ing  "  the  most  entirely  damned  state  of  soul 
possible  to  man,"  opposing  to  this  safeguard 
the  sanction  of  honest  motive  voiced  in  the 
word  of  Venice  that  "the  merchant's  law  be 
just,  his  weights  true,  and  his  contracts  guile- 
less." They  are  not  opposed  :  it  is  sanction 
that  uplifts ;  it  is  safeguard  that  protects  from 
falling, —  as  Nature  herself  hedges  about  the 
strongest  of  human  passions  with  the  great 
motive  of  love  of  family  and  the  awful  threat 
of  physical  penalty. 

And  the  scheme  of  science  looks  to  com- 
plete use  of  all  the  influences  that  make  man  The  Scheme 
and  of  all  the  powers  that  are  in  him— his  full  ?uif  oevel- 
and  harmonious  development.     He  does  best  opment 
who  observes  all  the  laws  of  his  system :  the 
observance  of  the  law  of  balance  leads  alike 
to  the  best  production  and  the  highest  happi- 
ness.    There  must  be  differentiation  of  func- 
tion, but  this  is  not  opposition  ;  the  head  and 
the  body,  the   brain   and   the  muscles,  are 
each  the  better  off  for  the  full  health  of  the 
other.     "To  each  his  work,"  but  to  each  as 
part  of   a  great  whole.     And  to  each  "life 
more  abundantly." 

We   have  found,   indeed,   often,   that   an 
abnormal  development  of  individual  function  Abnormal 
has  been  associated  with  intensity  of  action  ;  ^"^ction 
45 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  brilliant,  short  life  of  high  plane  con- 
trasted with  the  steady,  lasting  life  of  low 
plane.  But  science  again  denies  that  "with 
higher  average  of  life  "  is  necessarily  asso- 
ciated "  lower  average  of  health."  Her  voice 
is  that  the  part  is  better  in  the  health  of  the 
whole  ;  that  wholeness  is  health.  The  high 
peak  of  the  mountain  needs  broad  base  on  the 
earth.  There  is  Elizabeth  Barrett ;  but  there 
is  also  Robert  Browning.  And  above  all, 
there  is  Shakespeare. 

The  call  to  men  of  this  age,  then,  is  to 
"  The  Fu-  combat  the  difficulty  that  the  scientific  idea 
F^afthl""^  is  so  far  only  intellectually,  not  livingly,  ap- 
prehended. The  thought  is  not  yet  in  our 
blood  ;  it  has  yet  to  rule  our  life.  But  this, 
also,  is  a  part  of  progress.  It  is  for  the 
leaders,  leading,  to  bring  about  the  intellec- 
tually wrought  conversion  of  the  passing 
generation,  that  the  coming  generation  may 
be  born  in  the  light  and  trained  in  grace. 
The  great  aim  should  be  to  bring  the  race 
up  to  that  intellectual  and  spiritual  strength 
in  which  truth  is  sufficient  unto  itself,  that 
the  individual  man,  putting  aside  humbly  the 
mysteries  that  defy  solution,  content  him 
with  doing  his  duty  in  faith,  God's  law  unto 
himself.     The  idea  of  science  is  alike  selfish 

46 


FIRSTS   AND   LASTS 

and  altruistic,  for  in  right  living  is  the  high- 
est personal  happiness  and  the  fair  promise 
of  the  noblest  result  in  the  far  future. 
Satisfied  with  real  things,  not  with  sham ; 
taking  character  as  the  highest  good  because, 
also,  it  is  most  productive  of  good ;  seeking  the 
greatest  life  for  the  most  men  —  the  present 
lives  also  for  the  future,  and  to  the  Sphinx 
of  civilization  Science  gives  answer :  "  The 
future  —  and  faith  !  " 


47 


OF  EDUCATION 


OF   EDUCATION 

IHE  first  of  the  arts  of  life  is  edu- 
cation, the  leading  forth  of  the  Education 
human  faculties,  in  the  child,  fution''°" 
the  youth,  the  man,  as  Na- 
ture makes  ready.  As  Nature 
evolves,  man  should  educate.  Education  must 
be  in  even  step  with  evolution.  In  leading 
the  child  we  must  follow  Nature.  When 
Miss  Sullivan,  whose  own  sealed  eyes  had 
been  opened  to  the  light,  was  sent  to  open 
the  sealed  soul  of  Helen  Keller,  after  she  had 
studied  all  Dr.  Howe  had  told  of  Laura  Bridg- 
man,  Mr.  Anagnos  asked,  in  test  of  her,  how 
she  would  teach  the  child.  "  I  do  not  know," 
she  said;  "I  will  let  the  child  teach  me." 
She  had  proved  her  fitness,  for  she  voiced 
the  watchword  of  true  education.  In  teach- 
ing the  child,  we  must  learn  from  Nature, 
from  child-nature.  Thus  the  human  atom  is 
fitted  into  its  place  in  the  great  universe. 
Looking  forward  to  the  successive  stages 
of  development,  the  experience  of  parents, 
or  teachers,  should  become  pre-vision  and 
pro-vision  for  the  children.  It  is  thus  the 
race  climbs,  as  each  generation  rises  one 
step  higher  on  the  accumulations  of  past  ex- 
51 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

perience.  If  it  does  not  rise,  it  falls ;  and 
so  nations  decline,  and  fall,  and  are  blotted 
out. 

In  the  beginning  the  child  has  no  personal 
Experience  responsibility ;  its  birth  follows  the  birth  of 
the^ChUd  ^^^  hdhe  at  a  considerable  distance.  It  is  only 
well  toward  maturity  that  this  becomes  com- 
plete :  indeed  it  is  a  prime  purpose  and  test  of 
education  to  produce  personal  responsibility. 
But  education  begins  with  birth,  nay  before 
birth.  The  highest  product,  man,  is  slowest 
in  pre-natal  development  and  in  shifting  for 
itself  after  birth.  Thus  the  experience  gained 
by  the  parents  is  stored  in  the  child,  to  an 
extent  broadly  dividing  man  from  his  fellow 
animals.  Nature  is  here  a  banker,  and  ad- 
vances to  each  generation  the  parental  care 
it  is  expected  to  pay  back  through  the  gen- 
eration succeeding. 

The  first   duty  of  parentage,  thus,  is  of 
The  Duty  of  educating  self  to  educate  the  child  ;  and  this 
Parentage      j^ust  properly  begin  before  the  birth  of  the 
child,  that  the  infant,  the  unknowing,  may  be 
met  with  knowledge.     When  a  fern  comes 
from  the  ground,  it  appears  as  a  queer  little 
wad,  which  presently  unfolds  and  unrolls  ac- 
cording  to  the   laws  of  fern-kind   into  full 
52 


OF  EDUCATION 

frondage,  as  the  gardener  fore-knows  it  will 
do,  but  as  few  others  could  foresee.  The 
child  has  a  like  development,  according  to 
the  laws  of  humankind,  which  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  parent  to  fore-know.  These  laws 
can  be  learned,  and  the  dim  and  partial  know- 
ledge of  instinct  or  of  half-remembered  ex- 
perience is  by  no  means  a  substitute  to  excuse 
the  parent  from  the  responsibility  of  intelli- 
gent study. 

For  here,  even  as  elsewhere.  Nature  may 
not  distinguish  between  ignorance  and  crime.  Fatherhood 
The  laws  of  life  are,  above  all,  inexorable. 
The  inevitable  doom  for  their  transgression 
is  hard  —  alike  whether  it  be  innocent  or  pur- 
posed. Of  all  relations,  that  whose  conse- 
quences are  visited,  for  good  or  ill,  unto  the 
third  and  fourth  generation,  —  nay,  through- 
out all  generations  to  come,  —  is  least  fore- 
known. The  man  scarcely  faces  fatherhood 
as  a  conscious  end.  As  a  college  boy,  no 
training  is  too  costly,  no  self-denial  too  diffi- 
cult, no  studious  care  and  temperance  of  body 
too  hard,  through  weeks,  months,  and  years, 
for  the  winning  of  the  race  whose  immediate 
outcome  is  but  the  triumph  of  a  day.  But 
when  he  enters  the  lists  of  a  man's  responsi- 
bilities, intoxicate  with  love,  or  choosing  in 
53 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

colder  motive  the  fulfiller  of  life,  he  gives  to 
marriage  no  such  care  of  knowledge,  or  of 
training,  or  of  foreseeing,  in  body  or  in  mind, 
and  he  perchance  foredooms  her  who  is  dear- 
est to  him  and  those  who  shall  be  nearest  to 
him,  of  his  flesh  and  his  blood,  to  defeat  and 
shadow  and  despair  in  that  race  of  life  which 
he  has  lost  for  them  before  it  is  begun.  The 
Motherhood  wife,  indeed,  consciously  faces  motherhood, 
in  the  sweet  prophecy  of  the  little  life  which 
she  enfolds,  yet,  too  late,  she  also  finds  her- 
self unknowing,  unprepared.  In  this  great 
mystery  of  the  tenderest,  the  holiest,  the 
most  far-reaching  of  all  the  relations  of  life, 
the  relation  between  the  youth  who  is  to  be 
father  and  the  maiden  who  is  to  be  mother, 
our  modern  teaching  and  all  our  loving  care 
have  so  far  failed  to  find  how,  without  rend- 
ing the  veil  of  modesty  and  mystery,  to  give 
to  these  two,  with  each  other,  the  fore-know- 
ing which  we  provide  in  our  stock-raising  for 
the  brute  beasts  or  which  Nature  implants 
in  them  as  instinct.  But  to  this  need,  which 
science,  with  its  doctrines  of  heredity,  more 
and  more  emphasizes,  the  answer  will  come 
as  the  need  is  fully  seen. 

Those  are  among  the  greatest  benefactors 
54 


OF   EDUCATION 

of  the  race,  who,  from  Pestalozzi,  with  his  The  Refor- 
divinings  and  his  so  human  mistakes,  and  Educati'^n 
Froebel,  with  his  noble  devotion,  have  labored 
to  teach  the  teachers  this  first  of  the  arts  of 
life,  by  investigating  what  these  laws  of  de- 
velopment are.  These  are  the  Columbus, 
the  Galileo,  the  Newton,  the  Luther,  of  the 
child's  world ;  Protestants  for  childhood,  they 
have  prepared  and  preached  a  Reformation 
in  which,  here  also.  Nature,  freedom,  individ- 
uality, are  vindicated.  For  there  have  been 
terrible  mistakes.  Nature  tells  the  child  to 
touch,  to  observe,  to  test,  to  ask  questions, 
to  imitate ;  but  a  belittled  Pope  bulled  and 
bulHed  in  the  household.  It  was  "dont 
touch  ;  "  "  do  as  Papa  or  Mamma  (or  more  ig- 
norant nurse)  says,  and  don't  ask  Why ; " 
"  keep  quiet ;  "  "  little  folks  should  be  seen 
and  not  heard  ; "  and  for  imitation  what  ex- 
ample could  be  worse  than  the  fallible  frailty 
of  brutal  Infallibility.?  The  child's  Why, 
that  divining-rod  which  is  Nature's  gift  to 
the  little  explorer,  brought  no  answering 
spring  of  living  water  from  the  parental  rock. 
"Because,"  was  a  finality,  and  crushed  the 
childish  mind.  And  when  to  this  chill  frost 
upon  the  wee,  outreaching,  tender  plant,  there 
was  added  the  scarce  lesser  wrong  of  revers- 
55 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

ing  Nature's  order,  of  teaching  the  science 
before  the  art,  grammar  before  speech,  it  was 
only  because  Nature  is  strong  and  well  in- 
trenched, that  children  learned  despite  their 
teachers.  That  within  the  passing  generation 
we  have  come  to  see  our  mistakes,  to  inquire 
of  Nature,  to  follow  her  better  way,  is  per- 
haps that  for  which  the  future  should  be,  and 
will  be,  most  thankful  to  us.  The  great  ad- 
vance that  has  been  made  may  best  be  seen  by 
using  as  the  milepost  on  the  path  of  progress 
that  most  useful  of  teachers  of  a  generation 
ago,  Herbert  Spencer's  "  Education,"  which 
teaches  us  also  how  much  we  have  yet  to 
learn  and  to  do. 

The  end  of  education  is  to  make  a  whole 
The  Human  man,  full-rounded,  in  soul,  in  mind,  in  body, 
n-umty.  Health,  wholeness,  holiness,  are  from  the 
same  root,  in  fact  as  in  word.  The  hale  or 
whole  man,  integer  vitae,  is  the  man  of  phy- 
sical perf ectness,  of  moral  and  spiritual  fulfill- 
ment, of  intellectual  completeness.  A  sound 
body  is  a  first  need,  because  the  higher 
must  build  and  have  basis  on  the  lower.  A 
sense  of  right,  of  the  moral  order,  is  the  next 
need,  as  the  guide  of  life.  Intellectual  de- 
velopment   is    the     complement    of    these. 

56 


OF   EDUCATION 

The  ship  must  have  sound  hull  and  right 
ballast,  true  compass  and  straight  rudder,  if 
it  is  to  take  cargo  and  bring  it  to  port.  A 
true  education  regards  this  human  tri-unity 
and  interweaves  these  several  strands  in  the 
loom  of  life.  Thus  it  equips  the  man  and 
develops  character. 

If,  thus,  the  ideal  and  aim  of  humanity  is 
fullness  of  life,  a  first  care  must  be  for  a  a  sound 
sound  body.  "  To  be  a  good  animal "  —  this  ^^^^ 
is  the  safest  foundation  for  good  morals  and 
good  mind.  He  is  most  a  man  who  has  the 
greatest  quantity  and  best  quality  of  life  for 
the  longest  time,  who  has  most  life  through- 
out most  years.  To  lose  years  by  too  early 
death,  or  months  by  induced  disease,  or 
weeks  by  invited  illness,  or  hours  by  distract- 
ing pain,  and  to  lose  money  (alas,  to  most 
men  a  more  marketable  motive !)  by  the  pos- 
itive methods  of  long  doctor's  bills  or  the 
negative  methods  of  enforced  idleness  —  all 
such  forfeiture  of  life  is  indeed  too  often  sins 
of  the  parents  visited  upon  the  children,  sins 
of  careless  omission  and  brutish  ignorance 
and  even  reckless  defiance  of  known  law  that 
are  no  less  crimes  because  statute  law  cannot 
reach  them.  Alas,  that  the  innocent  must 
57 


THE   ARTS    OF   LIFE 

suffer !  For  Nature  heals,  but  she  cannot 
forgive.  Yet  through  this  suffering  unmer- 
ited, merited  punishment  comes  at  last  to  the 
guilty  also,  in  sad  harvest  of  misery  and  of 
sorrow  and  of  loss.  Physical  education  is 
thus  the  sine  qua  non  before  moral  and  be- 
fore intellectual  education;  and  the  parent 
must  set  himself  to  know  the  laws  of  animal 
life  and  of  its  environment,  in  which  last  such 
miserable  pettinesses  as  plumbing  are,  sad  to 
say,  not  safely  to  be  passed  by. 

Indeed,  as  a  question  of  morals,  a  first 
The  Physi-  duty  is  the  physical  duty  of  health.  "  Health 
HeaUh  ^  °^  is  the  religion  of  the  body."  "  Breaches  of 
the  laws  of  health  are  physical  sins."  The 
modern  view  of  health  is  wholesomeness. 
The  old  truth,  sana  mens  sano  corpore,  we 
now  read  more  widely  and  wisely :  Sana 
menSy  sanum  corpus.  A  sound  body  is  quite 
as  much,  if  not  more,  conditioned  in  a  sound 
mind,  as  a  sound  mind  upon  a  sound  body. 
A  right  discipline  of  mind,  a  wholesome  men- 
tal attitude,  often  forestalls  bodily  ills  and, 
in  a  sense,  prevents  pain.  The  mind  con- 
trols a  machine  in  which  it  lives,  called  the 
body.  "While  this  machine  is  to  him," 
man  lives.  It  is  his  business,  his  duty,  to 
preserve  this  machine  in  working  order.  If 
58 


OF   EDUCATION 

it  stops,  his  mortal  life  is  ended.  If  some 
parts  break,  or  rot,  or  wear,  his  body  is  crip- 
pled ;  if  other  parts,  his  mind  is  obscured, 
loses  control,  is  "lost."  This  body,  like  all 
flesh,  has  in  it  the  possibilities  of  decay, 
and  "  germs  "  innumerable  and  forces  mani- 
fold menace  it  from  within  and  from  with- 
out. 

To  the  diseased  mind,  studying  disease,  it  The 
seems  rather  hopeless  to  try  to  live.  A  re-  ^^J^^^y^ 
tired  physician,  in  the  morbidity  of  idleness, 
occupied  himself  by  "  having  diseases." 
But  to  the  sane  mind,  whole,  wholesome, 
holy,  it  is  the  principle  of  life  that  conquers. 
The  single  and  sufficing  security  against 
disease  germs  is  in  the  vital  soundness,  or 
wholeness,  which  resists  their  attack  in  ad- 
vance,—  like  an  alert  garrison  in  a  strong 
fort,  whose  well-defended  walls  an  enemy  can 
neither  scale  nor  shatter.  Vitality  resists, 
survives  ;  death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory  of 
life.  Life  re-sur-rects  itself,  rights  itself 
again  over  all.  The  wise  machinist's  care  is 
to  prevent  his  machine  from  breaking,  rather 
than  to  repair  it  after  breaking.  Regimen, 
the  rule  of  good,  is  better  than  remedy,  the 
cure  of  ill.  Drugs  are  but  repair  make- 
shifts; the  wise  physician,  the  master-ma- 
59 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

chinist  of  the  body,  sets  himself  to  keep  the 
body  whole. 

The  good  engineer  is  he  whose  engine  is 
Health  not  least  out  of  service  and  who  has  least  cost  of 
from  Dis-  repairs,  because  he  fore-sees,  provides  against 
ease  strain  by  looking  to  his  fuel,  water,  oil,  and 

keeping  his  machinery  in  running  order. 
And  this  he  does  not  do  by  studying  broken- 
down  engines  and  developing  a  morbid  fear 
of  accident :  he  must  simply  know  weak 
points,  curves  and  crossings,  "  look  out  '*  and 
"  take  care."  So  health  is  not  learned,  by 
child  or  adult,  from  disease,  by  introspective 
study  of  morbid  conditions,  but  from  the 
laws  of  life,  by  outlook  and  care-taking. 
We  need  to  know  the  human  machine  as 
the  engineer  knows  his  engine,  to  provide 
against  strain  by  looking  to  our  food,  regi- 
men, and  storage  of  vitality  :  but  the  studies 
of  anatomy  and  physiology  should  give  con- 
fidence in  life-power,  not  fear  of  death. 
The  true  physician  is  an  apostle  of  life,  a 
minister  to  the  mind,  a  physician  of  the  soul 
—  with  the  cheerful  presence  that  brings 
life  and  light  and  not  discouragement  and 
gloom.  In  epidemic  the  dauntless  mind 
keeps  the  body  sane,  and  escapes  contagion. 
The  heat  of  fever  is  overcome  by  coolness  of 
60 


OF  EDUCATION 

mind.  Courage  conquers  in  the  face  of  death. 
An  Arab  tradition  tells  that  where  plague 
kills  one,  fear  kills  ten. 

The  like  is  true  even  with  the  tottling 
child.  A  child  is  naturally  happy,  in  body  Brave 
as  in  mind.  Its  little  bodily  troubles  pass  ^°ker 
by  as  fleeting  clouds,  if  over-anxiety  does  brave 
not  emphasize  them  to  the  mind.  It  tries 
to  walk  :  it  falls.  The  wise  mother,  brave 
and  not  fearful,  takes  this  as  matter-of- 
course  :  so,  then,  does  the  child.  Up,  with 
a  smile,  even  if  it  hurts  a  bit  —  and  try  it 
again  1  That  is  Nature's  way  of  teaching  to 
walk  —  there  is  nothing  to  cry  about !  The 
unwise  mother,  over-anxious,  catching  the 
weakling  to  her  arms,  concentrates  its  at- 
tention upon  the  hurt,  congesting  the  blood 
there  by  the  mental  act,  invents  or  magni- 
fies for  the  child  sense  of  fear  and  pain,  and 
so  thwarts  provident  Nature.  Thus,  the 
"cry-baby!"  Brave  mother  makes  brave 
child,  and  it  is  the  fearless  who  conquers. 
Achilles,  Arthur,  Siegfried,  Parsifal,  the 
fearless,  the  guileless,  can  be  conquered  only 
by  guile  or  by  their  own  sin. 

And   Nature   means  us   to  be  healthy  — 
whole  of  body.    The  head  of  a  babies'  hospital 
witnesses  that  most  children  are  born  well. 
6i 

\ 


Nature 
means  us 
to  be 
healthy 


Sowing 
Seeds  of 
Death 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

The  apple  bloom  is  always  sweet,  though  the 
tree  be  gnarled.  Despite  ills  of  heredity  and 
distortions  from  pre-natal  life,  infants  have 
commonly  a  working  capital  of  life  and  health. 
Nature  does  her  best  to  give  each  of  her 
children  a  fair  chance.  It  is  by  ill  treatment 
that  they  are  made  ill.  It  is  ignorance,  or 
carelessness,  or  viciousness,  that  fore-dooms 
so  many  to  early  death,  or  to  death-in-life,  — 
the  lack  of  knowledge,  or  of  thought,  or  of 
love.  It  is  too  often  by  the  parent  that  the 
seeds  of  death  are  sown.  Swathed  and 
pinned,  jounced  and  churned,  the  wee  folk 
are  denied  the  free  and  quiet  development  of 
Nature.  And  as  their  bodies  are  pinched,  so 
are  their  tempers  thwarted  by  ignorant  par- 
ents. Nature  indeed  teaches  the  infant  to 
do  valiant  battle  for  life,  and  often  it  suc- 
ceeds and  survives  against  all  disadvantage. 
But  what  waste  of  life  we  might  and  should 
avoid!  It  is  not  possible  to  all  to  dower 
their  children  with  the  best  conditions  of 
life,  —  alas,  ignorance  or  poverty  forbids  !  — 
but  what  shall  be  said  of  those  who,  having 
before  them  all  possibilities,  give  instead  of 
bread  a  stone  —  those  mothers  and  fathers 
in  homes  of  education,  of  wealth,  of  ease, 
who,  careless  of  the  lives  given  to  their  care, 
62 


OF   EDUCATION 

bring  upon  them,  too  late  for  cure,  the  curse 
of  broken  law  ? 

Happy  the  child  to  whom  a  fair  start  in  life 
is  given,  by  wise  parents  and  wise  teachers  Physical 
—  for  whom  the  call  of  nature  for  food  is  ^Inf °^" 
met  in  even  regularity,  making  abstinence 
and  long  waiting  more  possible  in  adult  life 
when  stress  comes,  with  the  sufficient,  nutri- 
tious, and  varied  diet  nature  demands  for  the 
growing  body ;  for  whom  fit  clothing,  ruled 
not  by  foolish  fashion  but  by  natural  sense, 
supplies  protection  and  warmth,  so  that  food, 
needed  for  growth,  is  not  wasted  for  mere 
heating  of  the  body  ;  for  whom  warm  housing, 
in  its  turn,  saves  waste  and  harmful  exposure, 
while  open-air  outing,  pleasurable  exercise, 
and  natural  sport  give  to  the  body,  and  later 
to  the  mind,  what  we  rightly  call  free  play. 
As  the  child  becomes  youth  these  habits  of 
childhood  make  self-reliance  more  easy,  and 
give  the  right  trend  for  adult  life.  Thus  it 
is  made  ready  to  master,  unfearing  but  cau- 
tious, its  physical  self  and  the  physical  forces 
of  external  nature,  —  water,  in  swimming  and 
rowing;  animals,  in  riding  and  driving; 
weapons,  in  eye-and-hand  practice  ;  mechan- 
ical forces,  in  the  wheel  and  the  ball.  This 
physical  training  is  in  itself  moral  discipline, 

63 


Education 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

as  is  all  Tightness,  the  evident  answer  of  ef- 
fect to  cause. 

The  moral  education  of  infancy  and  child- 
Moral  hood  is  still  more  a  matter  of  parental  re- 
sponsibility, a  more  difficult  matter  also  be- 
cause it  demands  not  only  knowledge  but 
virtue,  and  that  most  difficult  of  virtues,  self- 
restraint.  The  child  adopts  the  motives  of 
its  elders,  and  its  ethics  are  the  ethics  of 
home  exemplars.  And  nowhere  is  that  fine 
law  of  Nature,  that  demand  creates  supply, 
more  finely  illustrated  :  in  many  a  household 
"a  little  child  shall  lead  them,"  its  elders, 
into  what  we  accurately  call  exemplary  con- 
duct. The  parent  is  the  god  of  the  child. 
From  father  and  mother,  by  imitation,  it  gets 
its  first  standards  of  conduct,  its  first  motives 
of  ethics,  its  first  religion.  Whether  we  will 
or  no,  the  child  has  its  direction  given  it  at 
the  start  by  its  parents,  as  the  rifle  gives  aim 
to  the  bullet.  Injustice  to  a  child  is  the 
most  cruel  of  wrongs.  The  revolt  in  a  child's 
heart  when  wrong  is  done  it,  when  it  is  pun- 
ished for  what  it  did  not  mean  to  be  wrong, 
or  for  what  it  did  not  do,  or  because  the 
parent  is  out  of  temper,  warps  its  being,  and 
gives  it  the  first  impulse  of  rebellion  against 

64 


OF   EDUCATION 

law,  against  Nature,  against  God.  Nay,  this 
does  worse ;  for  it  confuses  the  very  idea  of 
law,  confounding  it  with  brute  force  and 
causeless  will.  The  parental  responsibility 
for  physical  and  moral  education  therefore 
cannot  be  evaded  by  the  parent,  or  dele- 
gated to  the  Genius  of  Ignorance  in  however 
neat  a  white  cap,  or  even  to  the  most  just 
and  skilled  of  teachers.  The  parent  cannot 
shirk  this  duty,  for  it  is  the  foundation  duty 
of  parenthood.  Likewise  in  the  nurse  and  in 
the  teacher,  character  is  the  first  requisite. 
As  a  little  child  catches  a  brogue  from  a 
nurse  while  it  learns  to  talk,  so  it  will  catch 
character,  and  develop  in  love  or  in  hate. 
The  teacher  of  morals  must  himself  be  the 
exemplar  of  justice. 

The  true  moral  education  goes  back  of  the 
Mosaic  Decalogue,  "  Thou  shalt  not,"  to  "  Thou 
Nature's  One-Law,  sterner  yet  more  kindly,  ^^^^^  "°* 
"Thou  canst  not."  It  is  for  the  child  to 
learn,  by  reiterated  experience,  —  as  that 
fire  burns,  that  a  mother's  word  is  kept,  that 
edge-tools  cut,  that  a  lie  hurts,  —  that  effect 
follows  cause,  that  transgression  involves  re- 
tribution, that  law  rules.  The  universe  is 
morally  ordered,  under  the  rule  of  law. 
This  is  the  first  principle  of  moral  education. 

65 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

Every  school  must  be  a  school  of  law  and 
every  teacher  a  lawgiver. 

Nature  is  relentless,  and  awards  sure 
Nature  is  penalty  for  broken  law.  This  also  the  child 
relentless  j^^g^.  ig^rn,  in  practice  rather  than  by  pre- 
cept. The  one  thought  of  parental  discipline 
should  be,  not  punishment,  but  cor-rection, 
righting  the  child.  All  penalty  should  be 
the  logical  and  necessary  result  of  the  child's 
act ;  if  it  willfully  breaks  a  toy,  it  loses  the 
use  of  that  toy  and  of  other  toys  that  it  might 
break  ;  if  it  is  rude  to  playmate  or  mother,  it 
must  suffer  for  the  time  the  loss  of  compan- 
ionship —  and  so  on,  through  the  calendar  of 
child-crimes.  The  one  aim  of  moral  educa- 
tion should  be  to  produce  self-government  in 
accord  with  natural  law. 

The  child,  just  at  home,  just  in  play,  just 

The  Law  of  at  school,  becomes  the  just  man,  recogniz- 

ness^^^°"^"    ^^S  ^^^  regarding  Law.     As  the  great  law 

of  justness,  of  righteousness,  is  learned  by 

its  children,  a  nation   becomes  stanch  and 

strong  and  great,  for  all  history  teaches  that 

the  rise  and  the  fall  of  nations  result  from 

conditions  —  of  simple  and  steadfast  virtue 

at  the  beginning,  of  luxurious  unmorality  or 

immorality  at  the  end  —  that  are  above  all 

moral  conditions.    Names  mean  little.    A  na- 

66 


OF  EDUCATION 

tion  is  not  Christian  unless  its  citizens  are  in 
deed  followers  of  the  Christ.  A  nation  is 
not  moral  unless  its  citizens  recognize  cause 
and  effect,  right  and  wrong,  in  private  and 
in  public  affairs.  If  our  churches  teach 
our  boys  to  play  at  war,  and  our  ministers 
condone  unrighteousness  ;  if  our  economists 
preach  that  trade  is  war  and  that  each  nation 
is  in  commerce  the  enemy  of  each  other; 
if  our  workingmen  teach  that  a  man  must 
surrender  his  moral  judgment  or  be  denied 
work  as  an  enemy, — we  may  prate  peace, 
but  war  comes.  And  through  the  home,  the 
school,  the  church,  the  state,  all  teaching 
must  be  based  on  the  fact  that  health  of 
body,  rightness  of  soul,  are  the  physical  and 
moral  foundation  on  which  true  living  must 
rest,  and  without  which  mere  truth  of  intel- 
lect is  of  no  avail.  For  education  must  above 
all  teach  how  to  live^  in  wholeness  of  life, 
and  it  is  on  such  education  that  a  democracy 
must  rest  and  a  republic  endure. 

We  speak  of  physical,  intellectual,  moral 
education  ;  but  from  the  beginning  Nature  The  Inter- 
develops   each   in    an    interweaving   of  all.  E^ucatfon^ 
Nature   has   no   sharp   lines  :  she  does   not 
separate  landscapes,  classes,  knowledges,  — 
(>7 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

she  merges  one  into  another.  Thus  physical, 
moral,  intellectual  education  go  hand  in  hand. 
The  physical  education  of  the  sense-organs 
is  the  start  of  intellectual,  as  well  as  of  moral 
education.  Of  itself  the  child  learns  motion 
—  to  use  its  limbs,  to  balance  its  body,  to 
creep,  to  stand,  to  walk,  to  climb.  The  child, 
like  all  animals,  is  inquisitive.  It  puts  things 
in  its  mouth  and  to  its  nose ;  it  tou'ches  what 
is  within  reach  of  the  hand ;  it  is  interested 
to  see  and  hear  what  is  within  range  of 
eye  and  ear.  Thus  it  learns  for  itself  tastes, 
smells,  forms,  sounds  —  in  a  word,  facts. 
These  facts  it  puts  together,  compares  —  and 
at  once  sense-observation  is  supplemented 
by  thought-observation.  With  comparison 
Thinking  thinking  begins.  That  which  yields  to  the 
^^^"^  hand,   that  which   does  not ;   that  which  is 

within  reach  of  the  hand,  that  which  is  not ; 
that  which  shines  to  the  eye,  that  which  does 
not  —  give  thoughts  of  hard  and  soft,  near 
and  far,  light  and  shade.  Qualities  are  dis- 
tinguished. The  object  present  is  compared 
with  the  object  past.  With  association,  mem- 
ory begins.  Here  already  are  the  rudiments 
of  intellectual  education.  The  child  also, 
like  many  animals,  is  imitative.  It  seeks  to 
match  with  the  voice  what  it  hears  with  the 
68 


OF   EDUCATION 

ear.  Thus  it  learns  speech  and  learns  song, 
as  art,  not  as  science.  It  delights  in  pictures 
and  forms,  and  likes  to  make  them,  and  thus 
begins  to  learn  drawing  and  modeling.  It 
counts  and  arranges  objects,  and  thus  mathe- 
matics and  classification  begin.  Meantime, 
the  child  learns,  naturally,  —  that  is  by  pro- 
cess of  nature,  —  other  kinds  of  lessons.  By 
sour  tastes,  noxious  smells,  the  burn  of  a  fire, 
the  hurt  of  a  fall.  Nature  gives  warning,  and 
tells  it  to  avoid  ill,  to  respect  gravitation. 
From  the  persistent  relation  and  succession 
of  facts,  the  notions  of  fitness  and  unfitness, 
cause  and  effect,  right  and  wrong,  begin. 
Here  again  are  the  very  rudiments  of  moral 
education.  All  this  is  Nature's  doing  —  she 
does  this  for  the  infant  savage,  indeed  she 
does  much  of  it  for  the  infant  animal. 

But  Nature,  always  prodigal,  does  this  at 
unnecessary  cost  and  waste.     A  wise  teach-  A  wise 
ing  saves  and  safeguards.     It  puts  the  world-  sav^^s^^"^ 
experience  of  the  race  at  the  service  of  the  Waste 
newcomer.     It  is  not  well  that  a  child  should 
be  burned  by  the  fire  or  bruised  by  a  fall ; 
this  is   costly  and  wasteful.      Moreover  the 
senses  must  be  righted.     The  child  sees  the 
trees  tossing  in   the  wind,  and   thinks   the 
trees  churn  the  wind ;  the  savage  sees  the  sun 

69 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

obscured  by  a  cloud  or  by  eclipse,  and  thinks 
the  cloud  or  an  unseen  demon  has  devoured 
it ;  the  ancients  saw  the  sun  set,  and  thought 
it  sank  in  the  ocean  and  went  under  the 
earth ;  the  moderns  still  see  the  earth  as  the 
great  center  of  the  heavens,  surrounded  by 
shining  points  of  light.  The  larger  vision, 
the  wider  experience,  must  correct  these 
natural  errors  of  the  uneducated  senses. 
Also,  there  are  two  sides  of  the  objects  and 
forces  of  nature.  Water  cleanses  and  solves 
for  us ;  fire  warms  us  and  cooks  our  food  ; 
gravitation  holds  all  things  together.  Yet 
water  drowns  ;  fire  burns ;  gravitation  crushes. 
The  ministrants  of  life  become  the  ministers 
of  death.  To  safeguard  against  ill,  to  utilize 
the  good,  without  cruel  experience,  is  also  an 
achievement  of  teaching. 

As  we  face  intellectual  education,  several 

Intellectual    questions  as  to  the  purposes,  methods,  and 

Education     j-esults  of  "  schooling  "  at  once  confront  us. 

Is  there  in  the  child's  mind  an  order  in  which 

the  faculties  develop.-*     Should   all  children 

then  be  taught  the  same  things  in  the  same 

order  or  should  each  child  come  to  its  own  in 

its   own  way }     Should  education  equip  the 

child  with  knowledge,  that  is,  facts,  or  with 

70 


OF  EDUCATION 

discipline,  that  is,  training  ?  Is  there  an 
order  in  which  knowledges  have  worth,  and 
does  this  order  correspond  to  the  develop- 
ment of  faculties  ?  Is  the  educated  man  after 
all  better  equipped  for  actual  life  than  the 
"  self-made  man  "  ?  All  these  questions  con- 
verge to  a  single  focus  and  have  one  answer, 
if  we  can  answer  the  all-embracing  question, 
"What  is  true  education  ? "  For  a  true  edu- 
cation is  in  fact  that  which,  keeping  pace 
with  the  general  order  of  development  of  the 
child-mind,  answers  the  need  of  each  child, 
by  giving  facts  in  their  true  relations,  know- 
ledge disciplined  into  wisdom,  in  the  order  in 
which  knowledges  are  of  most  worth,  and 
thus  affording  all,  and  more  than,  the  advan- 
tages of  the  self-made  man,  without  waste 
and  loss. 

At  the  age  of  maturity.  Nature  notifies 
by  certain  external  signs  that  sexuality,  hith-  The  Facul- 
erto  passive,  has  become  active.  None  the  of^Ac-e™^ 
less  the  several  faculties,  intellectual  as  well 
as  physical  and  moral,  have  their  times  when 
they  come  of  age.  Nature  provides  for  de- 
velopment of  the  child  in  due  order,  and  a 
true  education  follows  Nature's  order.  To 
blunt  Nature's  keenness,  and  to  thwart  her 
methods,  —  as  to  teach  grammar  before  lan- 
71 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

guage,  —  is  the  greatest  mistake  possible  to 
education  and  "  civilization,"  the  sin  against 
the  holy  spirit  of  child-life.  We  find  that 
faculties  develop  in  the  child-mind  in  due 
order,  an  order  uniform  in  succession  though 
not  parallel  in  time,  and  of  consistent  and  ra- 
tional evolution,  in  the  case  of  every  child,  not 
bereft  of  its  complement  of  senses  and  facul- 
ties, born  into  the  world.  The  child  asks  in 
succession  "  What .? "  "  How  >  "  "  Why  ?  "  — 
the  question  of  fact,  the  question  of  relation, 
the  question  of  cause.  None  of  us  indeed  live 
"What,  How,  long  enough  to  know  all  the  "  What  ? "  but 
^^^  ^  it  is  not  long  before  the  child  begins  to  ask 

"  How .? "  and  to  learn  of  method  and  rela- 
tion. At  last  it  asks  **  Why  ? "  and  begins 
to  learn  of  cause.  "  What  is  it  ? "  "  What  is 
it  like  ?  "  "What  made  it }  "  are  the  child's 
touchstones.  The  basis  of  intellectual  edu- 
cation is,  in  this  sense  also,  physical  educa- 
tion :  the  senses,  not  the  reason,  are  first 
called  upon  ;  the  first  requisite  is  that  the 
child  shall  see,  hear,  touch,  taste,  smell,  i.  e,, 
observe  truly.  This  truth  of  sense-observa- 
tion, in  itself  a  moral  education,  becomes  in 
due  course  accuracy  of  thought-observation, 
in  obtaining  and  coordinating  the  data  for 
sound  judgment,  —  so  that  the  early  need  of 
72 


OF   EDUCATION 

the  child  is  also  the  final  need  of  the  man  of 
large  affairs,  in  business  organization  or  in 
concerns  of  state. 

The  child,  like  the  man,  needs  facts  first. 
Facts  are  the  food,  the  fuel  of  the  mind.  The  storing 
The  engine  must  carry  its  store  of  coal,  of  ^^^^s 
water,  of  oil :  otherwise  its  direction  is  of  no 
avail.  A  wise  teaching  selects  facts,  sup- 
plies more  facts,  and  puts  them  in  proper 
relation.  These  facts,  the  child  compares, 
by  likeness  and  difference,  associates,  assim- 
ilates, organizes  —  until  in  this  very  setting  ^ 
forth  of  related  facts  in  due  order,  the  mind 
is  trained  to  reproduce  them  in  like  related 
order  as  material  for  new  judgments.  The 
"  meaning "  of  facts  becomes  evident.  In 
due  course  the  senses  are  supplemented  by 
"  instruments : "  the  eye  is  trained  to  keen 
distinctions  of  color  and  tint  by  help  of  prism 
and  color-films,  the  ear  by  tuning-fork  and 
water-glasses.  Facts  are  put  together  and 
taken  apart :  analysis  and  synthesis  prove 
each  other.  In  this  way,  facts  are  not 
dumped  into  the  brain  as  a  heap  of  rubbish  — 
nor  is  the  child  required  to  swallow  diction- 
ary or  directory,  to  clutter  the  brain-chambers 
with  useless  knowledge,  as  names  of  forgotten 
kings,  days  of  battles,  numbers  of  troops. 
73 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

To  the  mind  as  to  the  body,  that  food  should 
be  supplied  which  can  be  properly  digested. 
Nature  invites  this  method  of  learning  by 
Learning  by  association  —  it  is  her  method.  The  domain 
Association  ^^  knowledge,  the  kingdom  of  Nature,  is  an 
organized  kingdom  —  ordered,  coordinated  : 
not,  as  childhood  used  to  be  taught,  a  scrap- 
heap  of  facts.  One  thing  not  only  follows 
another,  but  follows  from  another.  Beasts, 
birds,  fishes,  and  plants,  sounds  and  colors, 
have  correlations  within  and  across  their 
kingdoms  ;  the  mental  process  of  organization 
finds  correspondence  in  nature.  The  child 
no  longer  need  learn  a  hundred  names  of 
fishes,  a  hundred  of  birds,  a  hundred  of 
beasts,  as  isolated  facts  ;  it  can  be  taught,  in 
half  the  time,  how  the  fish,  developing  after 
its  kind  into  many  kinds,  in  likeness  and  un- 
likeness,  develops  presently  into  the  bird, 
and  this  into  the  beast,  the  mammaHa,  man  ; 
and  as  the  learning  mind  itself  develops  into 
adult  life,  it  is  brought  face  to  face  with  that 
wonderful  and  culminating  fact  in  biology, 
that  each  human  life  in  its  pre-natal  history 
follows  the  same  order.  Thus  knowledge  is 
taught  by  that  principle  of  association  which 
is  the  primal  law  of  memory.  To  fit  a  newly 
seen  bird  or  plant  into  its  place  is  to  know  it 
74 


OF  EDUCATION 

better  than  by  name.  As,  in  the  words  of 
Agassiz  and  Goode,  a  great  museum  is  a  col- 
lection of  labels  illustrated  by  specimens,  so 
a  well-educated  intelligence  is  a  collection 
of  mental  relations  illustrated  by  individual 
facts.  Thus,  though  knowledges  increase, 
mastery  of  them  is  easier,  because  the  key  of 
the  treasure-house  is  one  key,  not  many  keys. 
Classification  is  the  labor-saving  tool  of  the 
mind.  Thus  knowledge  of  facts  becomes 
disciplined  into  wisdom,  good  sense.  And 
the  pupil  of  to-day  learns  more,  in  less  time, 
with  half  labor,  than  the  child  of  the  genera- 
tion addressed  by  Herbert  Spencer's  book  on 
"  Education." 

In  the  memory-chambers  of  the  brain,  the 
senses  in  fact  store  impressions,  one  by  one.  Memory 
until  these  senso-graphs  rival  the  collections  L^brar^'^^^* 
of  a  great  library,  gallery,  and  museum.  Each 
collection  starts  with  a  few  things.  As  books 
begin  to  come  into  a  library,  they  may  be  put 
upon  the  shelves  as  they  happen  to  come. 
But  presently,  as  more  come,  there  must  be 
arrangement  —  the  librarian  can  no  longer 
put  his  hand  upon  each  book  separately.  If 
he  has  had  no  library  education,  he  may  put 
together  all  the  books  whose  titles  begin  with 
"A,"  "An,"  or  "The."  Or,  he  may  try  a 
75 


tion 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

more  sensible  alphabetizing  by  titles,  without 
these  meaningless  tags.  Or,  he  may  arrange 
his  books  according  to  the  names  of  authors. 
But,  if  he  is  to  have  a  real  working-library  — 
one  where  people  come  not  to  "  get  a  book  " 
but  to  get  knowledge  —  he  finds  he  must 
Classifica-  have  a  classification  by  subjects,  either  di- 
rectly on  his  shelves,  or  indirectly  in  a  subject- 
catalogue.  Each  subject  becomes  at  last  a 
special  library.  Soon  the  librarian  finds  that 
some  books  are  out-of-date  and  seldom  called 
for.  These  he  puts  on  less  accessible  shelves, 
and  brings  to  the  front  the  "  live  "  books,  to 
be  of  easy  access  to  the  seeker.  Last  year's 
newspaper,  the  ephemeral  book,  is  stowed 
away  out  of  sight  and  "  out  of  mind."  Col- 
lection becomes  but  a  means  for  selection. 
At  last,  the  great  library,  recognizing  that 
it  can  never  be  complete,  supplements  itself 
by  knowledge  of  other  libraries,  through  cat- 
alogues, bibliographies,  indexes,  —  and  its 
final  triumph,  in  the  "evaluation"  of  books, 
is  to  produce  at  once  the  best  book  of  its 
subject,  or  to  tell  where  it  can  be  had. 

So  in  a  well-ordered  mind,  the  senses  store 

datttf  arranged  by  the  method  of  association 

in  a  subject-classification,  and  these  can  be 

called  for  at  will,  combined  and  applied  to 

^6 


OF  EDUCATION 

practical  use.  The  brain  is  closely  analogous  The  Brain  a 
to  a  photographer's  store-room,  connected  ^central " 
with  a  telephone  "  central."  We  know  almost  and  Photo- 
nothing  of  the  physical  nature  of  the  brain  ito?e-room 
senso-graphs,  nor  do  we  know  the  limits  of 
brain-capacity  to  receive  and  store  such  im- 
pressions. The  phrenologists  assign  specific 
parts  of  the  brain  as  the  seat  of  specific  func- 
tions, and  physiologists  locate  the  nerve- 
centres  of  the  several  senses  ;  but  of  the  real 
records  in  brain-cells,  we  are  and  may  always 
be  ignorant.  But  we  know  that  observation 
and  memory  differ  with  individuals,  with 
ages,  with  specialization,  above  all  with  the 
training  that  educes  habit.  One  sees  and 
memorizes  much  ;  another  little.  The  child- 
mind  is  of  clear  plates,  sensitized  by  heredity 
for  this  or  that  kind  of  impression;  the 
matured  mind  takes  and  gives,  washes  out, 
re-sensitizes ;  the  aged  mind  seems  some- 
times to  lose  control,  and  faded  plates,  long 
since  forgotten  in  the  back  store-rooms,  come 
out  unbidden.  One  person  observes  and  re- 
members faces  ;  another  names  ;  some  both. 
There  is  a  natural  selection  :  we  remember 
only  for  a  day  or  a  week  what  we  had  for 
breakfast  or  dinner,  but  for  years  a  face,  a 
voice,  an  odor,  a  kindling  thought,  a  key-fact. 
77 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

The  memory  becomes  trained  to  forget  some 
things,  to  remember  others.  Education  should 
exercise  this  perspective,  in  the  cultivation  of 
habit.  The  eye,  the  ear,  the  inward  sense, 
need  to  be  trained  to  note,  to  consider,  to 
record,  worthily.  There  should  be  inten- 
tional differentiation  between  observing  and 
remembering.  The  modern  newspaper  makes 
the  mistake  of  attempting  record  of  all  the 
pettinesses  of  a  day  —  an  impossible  and 
worthless  task.  The  modern  education  must 
see  and  shun  this  serious  error.  Selection, 
not  collection,  should  be  its  aim. 

And  in  true  education  each  life  must  be 
Individual-  trained  after  its  own  pattern.  Each  child 
dien  ^^'^"  ^^s  ^^^  ^^g^^  ^°  ^^  treated  as  itself,  by  parent 
and  by  teacher.  The  farmer  does  not  treat 
alike  potatoes,  corn,  wheat ;  sheep,  cow, 
horse.  The  gardener  will  not  bed  together, 
nor  treat  alike,  his  roses,  his  lilies,  his  or- 
chids—  nor  will  he  treat  alike  one  kind  of 
rose  and  another.  Each  must  be  nurtured 
after  its  kind.  But  human  seedlings  do  not 
come  to  us  ready-labeled,  like  pots  from  the 
florist ;  each  life  must  be  studied,  to  know 
the  needs  of  its  own  character.  Nature 
divines  for  us.  In  the  light  of  general  laws, 
the  law  of  each  child's  life  —  temperament, 
78 


OF   EDUCATION 

tastes,  capacities,  trend  —  must  be  separately- 
discerned  and  studied.  No  two  children^ 
born  of  the  same  parents,  are  the  same,  or 
even  alike,  and  this  unlikeness  is  even  more 
marked  in  the  school  than  in  the  family. 
And  throughout  all  education  this  unlikeness 
in  likeness  must  be  kept  in  mind  by  the 
teacher,  in  leading  forth  the  faculties  of  the 
taught.  All  teaching  should  be  individual  Teaching 
in  its  personal  application,  though  in  its  pur-  individual 
pose  the  same.  While  children  of  the  same 
age  study  the  same  subject,  as  a  part  of  gen- 
eral education,  each  must  do  his  part  in  his 
own  way.  This  the  wise  teacher,  e-ducating, 
recognizes.  The  "grade"  system  needs  to 
be  tempered  to  individual  temperaments. 
Instead  of  putting  into  one  class  the  boy  of 
ten  who  is  eight  years  old  for  arithmetic  and 
twelve  years  old  for  spelling,  and  the  boy  of 
ten  who  is  eight  for  spelling  and  twelve  for 
arithmetic,  a  "  class  "  for  arithmetic,  by  due 
arrangement  of  hours,  should  include  those 
of  certain  advancement  in  that  study,  what- 
ever their  mere  age,  and  the  grade  certifi- 
cate should  be  given  for  each  study  and  not 
by  an  impossible  average  which  ignores 
differences.  To  reduce  a  class  to  physical 
uniformity  by  cutting  the  feet  off  tall  boys 
79 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

and  making  them  foot-stools  for  the  short 
ones,  would  not  be  good  practice.  Natural 
selection  should  here  also  be  recognized  and 
emphasized  ;  and  "  over-education,"  that  is, 
mis-directed  education,  prevented.  It  is  not 
wise  to  try  to  grow  a  lily  from  a  rose,  nor  a 
rose  from  a  lily. 

Self-preservation  "is  the  first  law  of 
The  Order  nature,"  and  next  in  order  of  need  is  self- 
o  Nee  s  maintenance,  "earning  a  living."  As  the 
family  precedes  and  is  the  unit  of  the  neigh- 
borhood and  the  state,  preparation  for  par- 
entage, rearing  a  family,  should  be  assured 
before  that  for  citizenship,  the  communal 
and  political  relation.  In  some  measure 
Nature  provides  for  all  these  in  the  instincts 
of  the  animal  kingdom.  Last,  and  pecul- 
iar to  man,  comes  aesthetic  development,  for 
the  gratification  of  individual  tastes.  This, 
Spencer  shows,  is  the  order  in  which  know- 
ledges are  of  most  worth,  an  order  which 
schooling  should  regard  in  developing  the 
child  into  the  man.  And  this  is  likewise  the 
order  of  a  natural  education,  an  education 
following  Nature  and  developing  according 
to  her  laws. 

For  the  instincts  of  Nature,  fulfilled  by 
80 


OF  EDUCATION 

a  wise  physical  training,  provide  first  for  The  Order 
the  preservation  of  life  and  health  ;  and  for  Jion  ^^^^" 
the  occupations  of  the  great  body  of  man- 
kind, "manual  training,"  the  development 
of  bodily  strength  and  skill,  of  the  eye,  the 
hand,  the  physical  powers,  is  now  requisite ; 
and  all  this  is  physical  or  sense-education. 
Moral  education  must  of  course  pervade  all, 
but  it  is  of  paramount  necessity  in  the  rela- 
tions of  parentage  and  citizenship,  the  home 
and  the  state,  in  which  the  sense  of  right, 
moral  development,  should  be  supreme.  And 
intellectual  education,  the  storing  and  train- 
ing of  the  mind,  beginning  in  the  first  rela- 
tions with  elementary  knowledge  of  natural 
facts,  and  with  the  simpler  processes  by  which 
art  supplements  nature,  as  drawing,  writing, 
reading,  measuring,  figuring,  — becomes  of 
increasing  importance  in  the  later  relations, 
with  physiology,  biology,  sociology,  philology, 
history,  politics,  economics,  psychology,  phi- 
losophy ;  until,  in  final  processes  of  culture, 
it  teaches  not  only  science  but  the  fine  arts 
which  become  personal  "accomplishments" 
and  gratifications.  Thus  a  true  education 
conforms  in  every  respect  with  the  several 
orders  of  development  —  within  the  child's 
mind,  without  in  the  requirements  of  life, 
8i 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

answering  to  that  evenness  of  supply  and 
demand  with  which  Nature  always  balances 
her  books.  It  proceeds  from  the  simple  to 
the  complex,  from  the  near  to  the  far,  from 
the  like  to  the  unlike,  from  nature  to  art,  in 
the  true  procedure  of  the  universal  law  of 
development. 

The  basic  education,  of  physical  sound- 
The  Kinder-  ness,  moral  rightness,  and  intellectual  true- 
garten  j^^gg  -^^  perception  of  fact,  is  the  field,  after 

the  mother's  care,  of  the  "child-garden." 
This  supplements  the  care  of  parents,  but 
can  never  supplant  it.  Here  Nature's  meth- 
ods of  play  and  of  imitation  are  used  as  the 
royal  road  to  learning.  After  the  nursery 
comes  thus  the  kindergarten,  in  which,  in  the 
sunshine  of  play,  the  human  plant  is  to  grow. 
The  kindergartner  sees  in  the  child  literally 
a  plant  that  is  to  be  brought  to  flower.  All 
plants  need  light,  warmth,  air,  water,  soil  — 
the  kindergarten  recognizes  that  the  light  of 
truth,  the  warmth  of  love,  must  come  to  the 
unfolding  of  the  little  life.  The  true  pur- 
pose of  the  kindergarten  is  to  put  the  child 
in  touch  with  Nature  ;  to  let  Nature  take  it 
by  the  hand  and  lead  it  forth,  each  little  life 
after  its  own  order  of  being  or  temperament ; 
to  encourage  the  small  seeker  after  truth  to 
82 


OF  EDUCATION 

ask  questions  of  Nature  and  listen  to  the  an- 
swers for  itself.  It  is  at  once  a  praise  of  the 
kindergarten  and  a  criticism  of  the  "  graded 
school,"  that  the  too  methodic  teacher  con- 
siders the  child  of  the  kindergarten  too  prone 
to  ask  questions,  too  individual,  not  readily 
"  drilled,"  **  uneasy  under  school  rote."  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  kindergarten  is  not 
merely  for  play,  or  a  place  where  the  child 
is  to  "have  its  own  way."  It  must,  above 
all,  learn  Nature's  way,  kind  but  also  just, 
sweet  but  also  stern,  by  no  means  "go  as  you 
please."  So,  in  the  games  patterning  real 
life,  in  drawing,  modeling,  weaving,  basket- 
work,  in  the  song  that  tells  its  story  or  points 
its  clear  but  unobtrusive  moral,  the  child 
must  be  getting  not  only  simple  knowledge 
and  simple  skill,  but  that  moral  discipline  cari- 
catured in  the  makeshift  of  "  drilling."  As  a 
"fad,"  without  high  purpose  and  sound  method, 
the  kindergarten  is  a  caricature  of  education. 
That  play  is  in  itself  natural  education,  and 
can  be  made  the  greatest  of  aids  in  teaching,  The  Teach- 
is  one  of  the  most  important  discoveries  in  ^"^  °^  ^^*^ 
the  history  of  educational  development, — 
the  great  contribution  of  Froebel.  Nature's 
indications  are  often  given  in  the  child's  own 
choice  of  play,  for  true  play  patterns  the  real 

83 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

affairs  of  life,  with  happy  instinct,  and  gives 
a  real  education.  The  simplest  games  of 
children  are  well-nigh  universal,  found  the 
world  around,  passing  from  one  child-genera- 
tion to  another,  without  written  record  or 
purposed  teaching,  as  the  Vedic  hymns  or 
the  epics  of  Homer  were  passed  on  in  the 
childhood  of  the  world.  The  ball,  the  top, 
Toys  the  hoop,  all  are  object-lessons  in  the  proper- 

ties of  matter  and  the  laws  of  motion,  giving 
in  happy  play  dexterity  to  hand  and  accuracy 
to  eye,  and  laying  the  foundation  for  a  later 
knowledge  of  the  science  of  motion.  The 
reins,  the  toy-wagon,  the  miniature  boat  or 
locomotive,  are  means  of  unconscious  train- 
ing. The  boy's  knife,  the  girl's  scissors, 
the  box  of  tools,  are  an  introduction  to  prac- 
tical mechanics.  The  doll  is  a  lesson  in  the 
altruism  of  motherhood.  Presently  the  child 
begins  to  collect,  and  a  collection  of  kinds 
of  leaves,  of  woods,  of  insects,  of  feathers, 
of  birds,  of  minerals,  of  postage-stamps,  of 
coins,  becomes  to  the  keen  parent,  the  alert 
teacher,  a  royal  road  to  botany,  to  zoology,  to 
geology,  to  geography,  to  history.  Here,  as 
elsewhere.  Nature  points  the  best  way,  and 
the  easiest  way.  In  choosing  his  play,  the 
lad  indicates  the  "calling"  Nature  gives 
84 


OF   EDUCATION 

him.  And  if,  by  wise  sympathy  of  parent 
and  teacher,  honor,  fairness,  kindness,  manli- 
ness, are  made  part  of  the  public  opinion  of 
children  in  play,  "honor  bound"  and  "no 
fair  '*  become  watchwords  in  life  as  well,  and 
a  solid  foundation  is  laid  for  the  civic  virtues 
most  needed  in  business  and  in  the  state. 

The  child  who,  in  the  kindergarten,  has 
learned  to  use  touch,  sight,  hearing,  rightly ;  "Primary  ^^ 
to  speak  carefully ;  to  do  simple  handy  work, 
as  in  modeling,  drawing,  and  weaving;  to 
play  wholesomely,  —  has  the  first  and  best 
outfit  for  human  life,  though  he  has  not  yet 
learned  his  letters.  For  these  are  but  the 
symbols  needed  to  record  his  thoughts  and 
his  speech.  Mankind  thought  and  talked 
before  it  wrote  and  read  ;  so  also  in  the  child 
—  use,  art,  comes  before  rule,  science.  It 
is  later  in  the  years  of  training  that  the  child- 
mind  should  attempt  to  master  the  artificial 
features  necessary  in  education.  To  read,  to 
spell,  to  write,  are  not  natural  endowments, 
but  artificial  acquirements.  The  child  draws, 
makes  pictures  of  objects,  naturally;  but  the 
degenerate  pictures  now  arbitrary  letters, 
conventionally  associated  with  sounds,  have 
no  longer  relation  with  natural  objects  and 
8s 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

can  be  learned  only  "  by  rote."  These  let- 
ters mastered,  the  child  applies  them  phoneti- 
cally, but  must  be  "  corrected  "  backwards  to 
Learning  the  arbitrary  idiosyncrasies  of  English  or- 
Enghsh  thoepy  and  orthography.  Of  all  tongues, 
English  is  perhaps  the  least  logical,  and  its 
"  rules  "  in  grammar  are  in  great  part  an  ef- 
fort to  classify  arbitrary  and  unrelated  facts. 
Reading,  writing,  and  spelling  can  indeed  be 
learned  in  English,  not  in  scientific  analysis, 
but  only  as  a  hard-and-fast  act  of  memory. 
Yet  when  the  elements  of  orthoepy  and  or- 
thography are  acquired,  there  is  then  a  natu- 
ral way  of  development  in  unison,  as  each 
learner  in  turn  reads  while  others  write  and 
perforce  spell.  Grammar  comes  last  of  all. 
It  may  be  that  the  typewriter  and  some  form 
of  phonography  will  find  place  in  our  schools  ; 
the  Morse  signs  can  be  learned  as  play, 
and  the  phonetic  symbols  of  Bell's  "visible 
speech,"  the  only  alphabet  logical  and  natu- 
ral, give  a  remarkable  discriminative  power 
in  hearing  and  recording  language,  even  of 
unknown  tongues.  Likewise  in  the  field  of 
mathematics,  arithmetic  and  algebra,  both  ar- 
tificial forms  of  numerical  expression,  pro- 
perly follow  instead  of  preceding  the  more 
natural  geometry. 

S6 


OF   EDUCATION 

Each  child  should  receive,  in  each  period 
of  schooling,  "an  all-round  education,"  com-  An  Educa- 
plete  so  far  as  it  goes,  so  that  no  time  or  pi^^e^so^far 
force  has  been  lost  or  wasted  when  the  child,  as  it  goes 
at  any  age,  is  withdrawn  from  school  to  ac- 
tive or  passive  life.  And  the  order  of  studies 
indicated  by  the  order  of  evolution  of  facul- 
ties still  proves  the  same  as  the  order  of  com- 
parative usefulness ;  development  continues 
to  answer  to  need.  In  any  stage  of  civiliza- 
tion all  need,  first  of  all,  to  observe,  to  think, 
to  talk ;  next,  to  read,  to  write,  to  measure, 
and  to  reckon.  The  child  should  be  taught 
first  the  prime  facts  nearest  home,  in  nature 
or  in  history,  and  as  it  learns  to  use  tools  — 
whether  figures,  words,  or  things  —  should 
master  the  simple  before  passing  to  the  com- 
plex. The  prime  factors  in  every-day  rela- 
tions of  adult  life  with  Nature  and  with  affairs, 
with  other  men  and  in  personal  conduct, 
America  plans  to  give  to  every  child,  within 
the  years  of  compulsory  education.  Statute 
law,  making  sure  that  the  child  of  ignorant 
or  heedless  or  selfish  parents  shall  not  lose 
the  chance  it  can  have  only  once  in  life,  pro- 
vides this  primary  education  for  all  children, 
and  "  compels  them  to  come  in." 

Now  the  human  being   has  the   tools   of 

87 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

The  larger  knowledge,  SO  that  it  can  work  its  way  into 
Knowledge  j^rger  knowledge.  These  avenues  of  elemen- 
tary education  lead  forward  and  open  upward 
for  the  fit  student ;  and  our  free  high  schools 
and  colleges  should  give  to  the  youth  who  by 
proof  of  fitness  earns  the  right  of  way,  those 
opportunities  for  which  he  cannot  yet  pay 
except  in  promise  of  future  service,  but  which 
if  the  door  is  not  thus  opened  must  be  lost. 

Primary  education  is  that  of  primary,  of 
"Secondary  universal,  importance.  A  less  number  of 
Education  "  (.]^ii(jj-gn  ^re  sure  of  the  next  advantage,  sec- 
ondary education,  which  is  of  secondary  im- 
portance—  the  widening  of  the  horizon  of 
the  individual  mind  by  the  teaching  of  facts 
outside  the  individual  experience  and  there- 
fore to  be  had  only  through  books  or  lectures  : 
the  knowledge  of  other  lands,  physical  and 
descriptive  geography  ;  of  other  times,  his- 
tory, not  in  dates  and  names,  but  of  vital 
facts  ;  of  the  wider  facts  of  nature ;  of  other 
languages.  This  is  properly  "  common- 
school  education,"  and  most  if  not  all  chil- 
dren should  have  it,  with  the  extension  of 
that  manual  training  which  gives  to  the  body 
parallel  development  of  knowledge  and  disci- 
pline. 

88 


Education  " 


OF   EDUCATION 

After  this,  and  only  after  this,  comes  the 
"  higher  education,"  in  high  schools  and  col-  "  Higher 
leges,  ^_which  fewer  children  can  have,  for 
which  many  children  have  little  capacity  and 
little  need,  which  consists  largely  in  the 
analysis  and  generalization  of  facts  into 
knowledge  of  the  general  underlying  laws, 
the  science  underneath  the  art,  as  the  rules 
of  grammar  and  the  equations  of  analytical 
mechanics.  The  higher  studies,  in  which 
the  larger  generalizations  marshal  innumer- 
able facts,  otherwise  useless  in  their  isolation, 
into  sequence  and  order,  under  the  rule  of 
the  greater  laws,  afford  the  final  discipline  of 
the  scholar.  Key-facts,  opening  vast  cham- 
bers of  knowledges,  are  stored  in  the  well- 
ordered  mind  ;  no  one  can  ever  master  all  the 
books  in  a  great  library,  but  the  student  be- 
comes trained  to  know  where  and  how  to  get 
what  he  wants.  History,  seen  as  sociology, 
in  its  great  sweep  of  progress  through  the 
ages,  has  its  mile-posts :  we  do  not  need  to 
measure  foot  by  foot.  Biology,  the  study  of 
life,  has  its  great  law  of  evolution  :  physics, 
the  study  of  forces,  has  its  great  law  of  cor- 
relation and  conversion ;  each  of  the  great 
realms  of  thought  is  illumined  by  the  light 
of  greater  law.     This  is  still  general  educa- 

,  89 


specialized 
Education 


Elective 
Studies 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

tion,  in  which,  while  the  individual  tempera- 
ment of  the  child  or  youth  must  be  consid- 
ered, in  method  and  practice,  the  purpose  of 
the  teacher  is  to  impart  an  all-round  acquaint- 
ance with  the  general  field  of  knowledge,  so 
far  as  the  pupil  goes. 

Last  of  all,  for  the  fit,  should  come  the 
specialized  education,  the  trade-school  for  the 
artisan,  the  art-school  for  the  artist,  the  dis- 
tinctive school  in  the  university  for  the  stu- 
dent aiming  at  a  profession.  The  special 
must  be  built  on  the  broad  foundations  of 
the  general,  both  in  knowledge  and  in  train- 
ing. 

With  specialization,  the  principle  of  "  elec- 
tion "  of  studies  comes  into  play  —  and  not 
before.  The  college,  whether  called  academy 
or  " 
as 

thing,"  that  the  youth  may  be  prepared  to 
touch  life  on  all  sides  and  in  any  calling ;  the 
special  school,  in  the  university  proper,  to 
teach  as  fully  as  may  be  "  everything  about 
something,"  that  the  man  may  be  specialized 
for  his  specific  work  in  life.  Thus,  the  col- 
lege professor  of  chemistry  teaches  his  sub- 
ject as  a  part  of  general  education,  the  typi- 
cal facts  and  general  laws  which  every  one 
90 


"  university,"  has  for  its  business,  to  teach 
far  as  may  be  *' something  about  every- 


OF   EDUCATION 

should  know,  the  merchant  in  dealing  with 
products,  the  lawyer  in  dealing  with  cases, 
the  preacher  in  dealing  with  analogies  ;  the 
university  professor  of  chemistry  teaches  his 
subject  as  a  specialty,  that  his  student  may 
become  a  chemist  or  apply  chemistry  as  a 
physician  or  a  mining  engineer.  It  is  not 
until  the  student  has  rounded  general  educa- 
tion as  a  college  "graduate"  that  he  is  best 
qualified  to  make  choice  of  "  elective  studies." 
Otherwise,  he  voyages  on  unexplored  seas 
without  chart  or  compass,  steering  as  best  he 
can.  A  premature  choice  elects  not  between  Premature 
specialties  of  knowledges  but  between  "  softs  ^^°^^® 
and  hards,"  as  when  "  patristic  Greek  "  at 
Harvard  was  taken  not  by  budding  theolo- 
gians but  by  those  who  **  went  in  "  for  athlet- 
ics. But  when  the  college  has  "graduated" 
the  youth  into  manhood  and  made  him  ready 
to  accept  the  responsibility  of  choice  and 
life-aim,  selection  should  be  invited,  not  only 
of  studies  but  of  teachers,  as  in  the  German 
universities.  The  "born  teacher,"  answer- 
ing to  the  need  of  each  child,  whom  children 
"love  to  hear,"  should  indeed  be  selected 
throughout  the  common  schools  as  well  as 
for  the  kindergarten  and  the  university,  but 
it  is  only  as  we  reach  the  latter  that  so  far  it 
91 


Education 
tested  by 
Results 


Culture 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

has  been  safe  to  give  natural  selection  by 
students'  choice  free  play. 

Our  "higher  education"  should  produce 
definite  results  in  higher  morals  and  higher 
character,  and  it  is  self-impeached  when  it 
gives  us  tricksters  or  hoodlums.  The  happy 
effervescence  of  young  manhood  has  need  to 
bubble  itself  off  in  sports  and  fun,  but  the 
self-restraint  which  comes  with  the  true  dis- 
cipline of  the  scholar  should  prevent  that 
over-stepping  of  the  bounds  of  sanity  and 
decency  which  gives  to  common  uneducated 
brutality  an  example  and  excuse.  The  stu- 
dent body  in  our  upper  schools  should  be 
self -organized,  self -governed,  under  restraint 
of  its  own  pubHc  opinion,  alert  to  the  respon- 
sibilities of  an  aristocracy  of  scholarship,  and 
thus  prepared  to  bring  into  the  body  politic, 
year  by  year,  clean,  new  blood  capable  of  the 
highest  service  to  the  democracy  from  which 
its  opportunity  has  come. 

The  final  education  completes  the  whole 
man,  with  the  "  culture "  which  is  as  the 
flower  to  the  fruit,  the  delight  side  of  life, 
literature,  music,  art,  the  enjoyment  of  Na- 
ture. Here  also  the  faculties  are  to  be  led 
forth,  e-ducated,  trained,  to  fullness  of  appre- 
ciation, an  appreciation  not  of  technical  skill, 
92 


OF   EDUCATION 

as  when  a  painter  admires  the  handling  of 
a  pigment,  but  of  qualities  of  inspiration. 
This  makes  of  life  a  garden  in  which,  after 
the  work-a-day  toil  of  the  field,  there  is 
rest. 

But  "schooling"  is  not  all  of  education. 
All  life  is  education  —  outside  of  school  and  All  Life  is 
after  school-days  as  well.  The  example  of  Education 
parents,  the  influence  of  companions,  the 
abiding  bonds  of  friendship,  the  touch-and- 
pass  of  incidental  acquaintanceship,  are  all 
agencies  of  unconscious  education  through- 
out our  lives.  But  on  the  men  and  women 
of  education  there  is  laid  a  duty  of  conscious 
education,  of  cultivating  the  art  and  the  arts 
of  life,  that  should  lead  them  and  those  with 
them  upon  ever  higher  planes  of  knowledge 
and  discipline  and  character.  The  state 
recognizes  this  in  providing  the  public  li- 
brary, which  shall  supplement  and  extend 
through  adult  life  the  opportunities  of  the 
school.  But  it  is  above  all  for  the  scholar, 
self-impelled,  to  develop  his  individual  life, 
and  thus  his  part  of  the  common  life,  in  full 
responsiveness  to  everything  that  is  highest 
in  life,  *'  to  hitch  his  wagon  to  a  star,"  to  find 
in  affairs,  in  social  life,  in  politics,  in  religion, 
alike,  at  once  opportunity  to  apply  all  with 
93 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 


The  Self- 
educated 


Rest  and 
Re-creation 


which  life  has  endowed  him  and  new  endow- 
ment for  Hfe  to  come. 

It  should  put  to  shame  those  who  have 
enjoyed  and  not  fulfilled  the  opportunities 
of  schooling  and  the  discipline  of  education 
that  men  and  women,  denied  these  opportu- 
nities and  this  discipline,  have  often  devel- 
oped by  the  education  of  daily  life  a  standard 
of  noble  character  and  uplifted  living,  far 
above  that  of  many  who  have  wasted  their 
talents  and  belittled  themselves.  There 
have  been  artists  who,  lacking  hands,  have 
drawn  pictures  with  their  toes  ;  there  are 
workers  who,  lacking  tools,  have  overcome 
all  disadvantages,  made  their  own  tools,  and 
achieved  their  perfect  work.  All  honor  to 
such  as  these  !  but  let  us  not  argue  that  lack 
of  education,  of  hands,  or  of  tools,  has  made 
them  what  they  are. 

In  education,  for  the  youth  and  through 
adult-life  as  well,  a  great  factor  is  rest  and 
re-creation.  Our  busy  age  neglects  what  it 
most  needs.  We  have  gone  daft  for  amuse- 
ment —  it  is  a  vice  of  the  times  ;  but  that  is 
not  re-creation.  Nor  is  idleness,  rest.  Here 
also  the  happy  mean  is  between  the  extreme 
which  we  reject  and  the  extreme  to  which 
our  pendulum  swings.  The  victim  of  **  cram," 
94 


OF   EDUCATION 

with  head-splitting  ache  and  eyes  red  from 
the  blood-congestion  in  his  brain,  his  head  in 
a  towel  and  his  feet  in  hot  water,  is  no  worse 
and  no  better  than  the  hero  of  sport,  his 
head  cracked  by  blow  or  kick  and  with  black 
eye  and  bruised  body  from  the  athletic  field. 
We  need  to  learn  to  rest.  For  we  of  to-day 
not  only  "murder  sleep,"  but  murder  waking 
rest.  The  diversion  of  our  busy  thoughts 
into  quiet  is  an  unknown  art.  We  cannot 
fold  our  hands  or  infold  our  spirits  with 
quiet.  The  art  of  rest  must  be  one  of  our 
educative  arts  of  life. 

Thus  in  education,  the  law  of  Nature  holds. 
Each  right  step,  in  the  individual  life,  is  Harmony 
found  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  great  laws  cSioi?*^"" 
of  the  universe.  All  is  in  tune.  Education 
has  been  so  wrong  in  the  past,  so  far  from 
Nature's  way,  especially  in  its  relations  with 
democracy,  that  to  many  there  is  despair 
as  to  right  education.  But  it  is  only  within 
the  past  generation  that  mankind  has  reached 
that  place  in  progress  where  real  education 
is  rightly  discerned.  Our  progress  since  has 
been  indeed  wonderful  and  encouraging. 
Let  us  not  fail  of  heart  in  this  work  for  the 
future. 

95 


OF  BUSINESS 


OF  BUSINESS 

JGNORANT  or  educated,  self- 
taught  or  schooled,  the  boy  or  Facing  the 
girl,  the  man  or  woman,  "  be-  ^^^^^ 
gins  life,"  —  faces  the  world. 
"  The  world,"  it  is  said,  "  is  all 
before  him  where  to  choose."  At  first,  this 
does  not  seem  true.  The  world  of  present 
and  personal  possibilities  is  but  a  part  of 
the  great  world.  Yet  it  is  the  open  door. 
Every  road  leads  everywhere.  A  boy  with 
an  "aim  in  life,"  and  will-power  behind  the 
aim,  has  good  chance  for  any  goal.  The 
girl's  choice,  of  old,  was  passive  ;  she  had  to 
wait  for  her  world  till  a  man  should  open  the 
door  for  her.  But  to-day  her  world  also  is 
within  her  choice ;  she  also  may  have  aim, 
and  need  not  wait  the  happening  man.  Now-  Choice  of 
adays,  boy  or  girl  alike  may  each  measurably  ^"^y-ness 
decide  what  his  or  her  busy-ness,  work  in  the 
world,  shall  be.  Free-will  steers  predesti- 
nation, and  purpose  builds  in  and  out  from 
environment,  as  the  rudder  of  the  great  ship, 
answering  to  will,  controls  and  directs  the 
predestinating  forces  of  steam  and  wave. 

It  is  a  prime  usefulness  of  education  that 
it  enables  the  youth  to  make  a  fit  choice. 
99 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

Education     It  used  to  be  assumed  that  education  was 
and  Success  ^  hindrance  to  *'  success  in  life."     The  great 
merchant  was  to  begin  by  sweeping  out  the 
store.     The  weakling  was  the  proper  candi- 
date for  college,  whence  a  living  might  be 
assured   for    him   in   the   church   or  other 
"learned  profession."     A  college  education 
was  thought  a  handicap  against  "  practical  " 
achievement.   This  superstition  is  one  of  the 
husks  the  world  has  thrown  off.     The  free 
play  of  competition  has  entered  all  the  pro- 
fessions, and  all  are  the  better  for  it.     The 
theological  seminary  can  no  longer  send  out 
spiritless  souls  to  inspire  spirituality,  nor  the 
medical  colleges  weak  characters  to  tell  men 
Competition  how  to  get  strong.     Competition   demands 
cwe'^of      choice  of  tools.     A  man  should  first  know 
Tools  to  what  "  calling  "  he  is  called,  by  nature, 

by  his  own  nature.  We  need  clay  for  bricks, 
oak  for  a  ship's  keel,  willow  for  baskets,  cast 
iron  for  stoves,  wrought  iron  for  shovels,  the 
finest  steel  of  finest  temper  for  edge  tools. 
There  are  men  of  like  materials.  Competi- 
tion—  not  that  for  money,  but  that  of  qual- 
ities —  is  the  test  of  the  modern  world.  It 
rejects  alike  tool  steel  in  place  of  clay,  or 
clay  in  place  of  cast  iron.  So  it  rejects  from 
commercial  success  men  of  too  soft  nature, 
100 


OF   BUSINESS  >       .      ,.,,,,,,,, 

of  weak  will,  and  from  spiritual  Success  lil6n  *  ^  '  '^  ^ ' '  ' 
of  too  hard  nature,  of  reckless  self-will.  First 
of  all,  then,  a  man  should  seek  to  know  what 
he  is  good  for.  The  tragedies  of  human  life 
are  largely  from  the  failures  of  mis-place- 
ment. Yet  ever  it  is  the  finer  material  that 
is  of  the  wider  range.  Steel  can  be  used  in 
place  of  bricks,  but  clay  cannot  be  used  in 
place  of  steel.  A  wise  education  should  have 
taught  the  youth  of  what  use  his  material 
may  best  be  in  the  world. 

In  the  period  of  education,  all  relations  are 
personal.     Life-activities  are  concentrated  on  The  World 
the  internal  development  of  the  human  being  fhS-jack- 
—  the  youth  is  to  make  the  most  of  himself,  built 
Now  relations  become  social,  external  —  the 
man  is  to  make  the  most  of  the  world.     He 
has  been  dealing  with  the  laws  of  personal  /y 

development ;  he  deals  now  with  the  laws  of  ' 

social  development.  He  is  to  do  service  for 
others,  and  thus  earn  his  living.  Thus  the 
busy  world,  the  world  of  business,  is  a  great 
House-that-Jack-built,  ordered  under  the  reign 
of  law,  in  which  one  service  fits  in  with  an- 
other. The  science  of  trade  is  indeed  called 
economics^  house-rule,  and  we  must  master 
its  laws  to  practice  at  best  advantage  the  / 

lOI 


..,..,  ,    THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

• ' ' '  art  ot  business.     "  Know  thyself  —  know  the 

world,"  "know  laws  —  know  facts,"  are  can- 
ons of  success.     Knowledge  is  indeed  power. 

There  is  a  discussion  as  between  the 
"  Old  "  and  "old  "  and  the  "  new  "  schools  in  economics, 
Schools  in  because  the  old  advanced  laws  and  applied 
Economics  these  to  facts,  while  the  new  seeks  facts  and 
generalizes  these  into  laws.  The  difference 
is  of  method  only.  The  old  political  econo- 
my is  deprecated  as  philosophic  rather  than 
historical  and  theoretic  instead  of  practical, 
emphasizing  a  narrow  self-interest  instead  of 
the  larger  good.  The  old  political  economy 
indeed  thought  first  of  things ;  the  new  eco- 
nomics thinks  first  of  men  —  and  this  is  bet- 
ter. But  there  is  no  more  need  of  a  new 
economics  than  of  a  new  religion.  The  truly 
philosophic  becomes  the  historic;  true  the- 
ory becomes  actual  practice  ;  and  an  enlight- 
ened self-interest  zs  altruistic  in  high  degree. 
The  aim  of  economics  is  gain.  But  greed  is 
not  gain.  Selfishness  and  self-interest  are 
not  the  same.  For  men  cannot  live  to  best 
result  except  in  the  light  of  the  larger  good. 
Here  economics  shades  into  ethics,  and  can- 
not be  separated  from  it. 


I02 


OF   BUSINESS 

In  the  beginning  a  man  earned  his  living 
simply,  each  man  for  himself.  He  was  inde-  Independent 
pendent  of  all  but  Nature.  He  tilled  or  killed  ^^"^ 
food  for  himself,  tended  his  own  flock,  wove 
his  own  clothes,  built  his  own  hut.  He  de- 
fended himself  against  the  forces  of  Nature, 
wild  beasts,  and  hostile  man.  When  Nature 
denied  rain,  sunshine,  warmth,  to  his  little 
field  or  his  little  flock,  he  soon  starved.  He 
had  small  store,  and  the  wide  world  could  not 
help  him.  The  stronger  man  made  him  his 
slave,  his  dependent.  With  civil  organiza- 
tion, that  is,  civilization,  through  the  tribe, 
the  nation,  and  now  in  world-relation,  inde- 
pendence gave  way  to  inter-dependence.  In-  inter- 
dependence, dependence,  inter-dependence,  ^pendent 
has  been  the  line  of  progress.  Man  ex- 
changes. Primitive  barter  has  given  place 
to  complex  commerce.  To-day  men  are 
interdependent,  each  man  upon  each  other 
man,  throughout  the  world.  Foresight 
safeguards.  Manufacture  transforms.  Capi- 
tal stores.  Transportation  equalizes.  The 
weather  bureau  telegraphs  the  storm  and 
the  farmer  saves  his  hay.  A  forest  com- 
mission, preserving  trees,  prevents  droughts 
and  famines.  Irrigation  fertilizes  deserts.  If 
Nature  denies  rain  and  warmth  for  crops  in 
103 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

India  or  Ireland,  the  sunshine  that  is  else- 
where in   the   world,    stored   in   bounteous 
crops,  will  be  brought  to  their  service,  pre- 
venting starvation.     The  cotton  of  the  sub- 
tropical south,  the  wool  of  the   temperate 
north,  kept  from  harvest  to  winter,  manu- 
factured  into  cloth,  transported   the  world 
over,    clothe    the    world.     The    man    who 
dressed  in  skins  has  a  shirt ;   he  who  had 
one  has  two,  and  can  wash  and  be  clean. 
This  is  the  grand  result  of  the  economic 
Free  Play  of  evolution  of  society,  made  possible  by  the 
Competition  ^^^^  ^j^^  ^£  competition,  under  which  each 

human  particle  finds  its  part  in  that  differ- 
entiation of  function  which  develops  the 
social  organism  in  a  vast  interdependence  of 
all  parts.  But  there  is  another  result.  In 
the  fluid  sea,  in  the  fluent  quicksands,  where 
gravitation  is  not  offset  by  cohesion,  heavy 
things  sink.  So  in  economic  freedom,  the 
men  who  do  not  swim,  sink.  It  is  this  law 
that  has  compelled  man  to  build  boats  and 
made  him  master  of  all  seas.  It  is  this  law 
which  compels  men  to  struggle  for  life  and 
a  living,  in  a  struggle  which  makes  strong. 
All  the  same,  the  man  who  is  sinking  must 
have  a  friendly  hand  into  the  boat.  This  hu- 
manity owes  him,  for  his  sake  —  and  for  its 
104 


OF   BUSINESS 

own  sake.  Otherwise  he  may  overturn  the 
boat  in  his  struggles  as  he  goes  down.  Or- 
ganization, obtaining  the  beneficences,  must 
also  mitigate  the  malversations,  of  natural 
law.  This  is  an  economic  as  well  as  a  moral 
responsibility.  A  system  which  makes  the 
few  rich,  but  the  many  poor,  cannot  last. 
The  winds  of  heaven  soon  overturn  the  tree 
whose  roots  are  not  as  broad  as  its  top. 

To  earn  his  living,  to  make  the  best  of 
things,  a  man  must  work.  He  may  work  The  Earth 
with  his  hands  or  his  head,  his  muscle  or  his  o^Vroduc- 
brains.  If  he  receives  by  gift,  this  means  tion 
that  some  one  before  him  has  worked,  and 
saved.  The  first  step  of  work  is  when  men 
take  from  the  earth  the  material  on  which 
further  work  is  to  be  done  —  by  tilling  fields, 
or  digging  in  mines,  or  tending  flocks  that 
feed  on  the  earth,  or  catching  fish  in  the  sea. 
Mother  Earth  is  indeed  the  mother  of  wealth ; 
land  is  the  source  of  production.  There  is 
no  "  material "  value  which  does  not  origi- 
nate from  it.  The  land  is  the  domain  of  a 
sovereign  —  in  a  kingdom,  of  the  king ;  in 
our  Union,  of  each  State  as  representing  the 
people.  The  sovereign  gives  title  to  owners 
of  land,  and  by  "right  of  eminent  domain" 
105 


Rent 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

may  by  just  method  take  it  back  from  an 
owner  for  the  need  of  the  public.  To  "  own  " 
land  is  thus  merely  to  hold  the  right  to  use 
it  and  transfer  the  title. 

To  obtain  product  the  soil  must  be 
Land  and  "  worked  : "  labor  must  be  applied  to  land. 
Some  land  is  better  than  other :  with  the 
same  labor,  it  gives  product  of  more  value, 
two  bushels  of  potatoes  instead  of  one.  The 
owner  may  let  the  land  be  used  by  a  tenant. 
The  farmer  does  not  get  less  or  more  for  the 
potatoes,  but  the  owner  gets  more  "  rent.'* 
Rent,  then,  does  not  increase  the  price  of 
products,  but  measures  the  value  of  the  land. 
Land  is  also  needful  to  house  upon.  Its 
rent,  then,  increases  with  the  proximity  of 
people.  This  increase  is  called  the  "  social 
increment."  Rent  comes,  therefore,  from 
nature  -  value  or  social  increment.  The 
higher  value  of  "desirable"  land  is  not  be- 
cause of  the  owner  or  the  worker,  but  from 
Nature  or  from  the  people.  Thus  the  doc- 
trine of  sovereignty,  of  eminent  domain,  over 
land,  in  the  interest  of  all  the  people,  is  a  doc- 
trine as  fundamental  in  economics  as  in  the 
theory  of  the  state,  and  a  land  tax  within  the 
limits  of  rent  is  the  economic  method  for 
reclaiming  for  the  people  the  value  which 
io6 


OF  BUSINESS 

Nature  or  the  social   organization,  and  not 
the  individual  owner  or  worker,  has  put  there. 

The  farmer  is  the  man  on  whom  all  of  us 
depend  for  our  food,  for  our  clothes,  in  part  The  Farmer 
for  our  shelter.  Nearly  half  of  all  workers 
are  busy  in  farm-life.  With  him  are  the 
woodsman,  the  miner,  the  quarryman,  the 
hunter,  the  fisherman,  —  each  doing  his  part 
singly  to  extract  from  Nature  the  raw  mate- 
rial which  all  men  need.  The  farmer  is  the 
man  most  dependent  on  Nature,  least  de- 
pendent on  men,  on  whom  men  most  depend. 
He  lives  close  to  Nature,  in  the  fresh  air, 
in  the  sunshine,  is  his  own  master,  —  but 
has,  in  the  nature  of  things,  the  least  help 
from  the  social  organization.  Yet  labor-  His  Help 
saving  implements,  improved  seeds,  fertil-  ^^om  Society 
izers,  help  him  to  do  more  work  at  less 
cost ;  the  weather  bureau  forewarns  him  bet- 
ter than  his  guess ;  the  railroad  gives  him 
the  world's  market ;  the  trolley  brings  him 
closer  to  his  neighbors ;  the  public  library 
lends  him  books ;  education  lifts  his  life, 
though  it  may  decrease  his  content.  If 
crops  fail  elsewhere,  he  gets  the  better 
price;  if  crops  are  abundant,  the  storing, 
packing,  canning  industries  save  his  sur- 
107 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 


His  Work 
by  Himself 


His  econo- 
mic Gain 


plus ;  if  his  own  crops  fail,  they  in  turn  sup- 
ply him  with  food.  As  a  better  banking 
system  is  developed,  local  banks  will  give 
him  more  cheaply  the  credit  he  needs,  until 
his  savings  make  him  his  own  capitalist. 
Still,  at  the  mercy  of  Nature,  seed  by  seed 
and  day  by  day,  he  must  till  his  crops  and 
tend  his  stock,  doing  his  own  work  by  him- 
self and  seeing  its  fruition.  But  there  is  no 
longer  the  isolation  which  of  old  dulled  him 
and  drove  his  wife  crazy  ;  and  his  life  is  worth 
living  as  never  before.  Competition  from 
the  West  —  whose  rich  lands  and  broader 
farms,  permitting  labor-saving  machinery  on 
a  large  scale,  have  produced  better  crops 
more  cheaply  —  has  reduced  farming  in  New 
England,  where  Massachusetts  grew  in  1890 
only  1800  bushels  of  wheat  against  ii9,cx)0 
bushels  in  i860;  but  the  farmers  of  New 
England  will  be  the  better  off  from  raising 
garden  product  by  "high  farming."  Thus 
even  the  farmer,  most  of  all  subject  to  the  ups 
and  downs  of  Nature,  finds  economic  gain  at 
the  last  in  changing  conditions  from  which 
at  first  he  seems  to  benefit  least  and  which 
in  some  cases  seem  to  make  his  lot  and  his 
life  the  harder.  Though  hard  work  conceals 
the  poetry  of  his  calling,  his  is  the  vocation 
108 


OF   BUSINESS 

of  the  golden  age,  to  which  all  men  desire  to 
return  ;  for  he  deals  with  life  and  is  its  min- 
ister, the  alchemist  who  transmutes  dead 
earth  into  golden  grain,  and  the  grass  of  the 
field  into  food  of  the  beasts  that  are  the  com- 
panions and  servitors  of  man.  And  in  this 
work  he  finds  or  should  find  that  inspiration 
of  love  and  service  which  in  highest  degree 
only  living  things  can  call  forth. 

To  the  raw  material  from  the  farm,  the 
forest,   the    mine,   the   quarry,   the  waters,  Manufac- 
manufacture   or  handiwork   adds   value    by  ^^^^ 
changing  its  form,  through  successive  steps, 
in  which  the  product  of  one  process  becomes 
the  material  of  the  next,  up  to  the  finished 
product.    Here  modern  organization  and  the 
division  of  labor  reach  their  largest  develop- 
ment ;  the  worker  in  the  home,  the  shop,  the 
mill,  gives  place  to  the  operative  in  the  great 
factory,  and  the  individual  becomes  a  minor 
yet  an  essential  and  integral  part  of  a  huge 
organism.    At  once  the  master  and  the  slave  The  Opera- 
of  his  machine,  less  free  than  the  farmer,  **^® 
less  dependent  on  Nature  and  more  on  man, 
sheltered  from  the  weather,  more   sure   of 
return,  with  shortening  hours  and  bettering 
pay  as  labor  gets  its  increasing  share  of  pro- 
duct, doing  but  a  particle  of  the  completed 
109 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

work,  —  his  life  has  its  good  and  its  ill,  bal- 
ancing more  and  more  to  the  good,  except 
as  trade  depressions,  corporate  mismanage- 
ment, "  strikes,"  or  other  causes  or  condi- 
tions mostly  beyond  his  individual  power  to 
control  or  to  mitigate,  throw  him  back  upon 
his  savings  or  his  "luck."  The  division  of 
labor  necessary  to  get  each  part  done  well 
and  at  least  cost,  is  carried  so  far  that  the 
"  hand  "  in  a  great  factory  cannot  see  the  use 
or  the  worth  of  his  work,  and  cannot  come 
in  touch  with  the  men  who  direct  his  labor 
or  who  buy  his  product.  He  cannot  feel  his 
relation  with  human  affairs.  But  all  these 
workers,  each  doing  his  own  part,  are  neces- 
sary in  the  great  House-that-Jack-built,  and 
to  each  is  due  credit  and  honor  for  his  work 
well  done  and  opportunity  to  make  the  most 
out  of  his  life. 

The  transportation  industries  add  value, 
Transporta-  not  by  change  of  form,  but  by  change  of 
place,  bringing  goods  to  a  place  where  they 
are  more  wanted,  and  carrying  passengers 
where  they  want  to  go,  and  also  by  help  of 
telephone  and  telegraph  transporting  intelli- 
gence and  saving  cost  of  time  and  distance  in 
travel.  Their  workers,  like  the  farmers,  work 
each  by  himself,  yet  like  the  operative  each 
no 


tion 


OF   BUSINESS 

is  part  of  a  great  organism,  which  depends 
on  the  alertness  and  accuracy  of  each  man. 
Day  and  night,  in  rain  and  shine,  the  rail- 
road man,  the  seafarer,  in  tense  strain,  hav- 
ing lives  and  wealth  in  his  keeping,  does  his 
duty,  serving  all  the  world.  His  work  is 
entirely  the  result  of  modern  invention  and 
organization,  without  which  it  would  not 
exist. 

Those  engaged  in  manufactures,  a  quarter 
of  all  workers,  and  in  transportation,  an  The  Wage- 
eighth  of  all,  make  up  with  farm-hands,  un-.  ^^^'^^'^^ 
skilled  laborers,  and  household  servants,  the 
great  body  of  wage-earners,  who  get  stated 
pay,  either  for  their  time  or  *'  by  the  piece." 
The  "  industrial  classes,"  with  the  farmers, 
count  up  seven-eighths  of  all  who  "  earn 
their  living "  by  work,  and  the  welfare  of 
seven-eighths  of  the  population  is  directly, 
and  of  the  whole  community  is  indirectly, 
bound  up  with  their  prosperity.  Their  work 
is  the  foundation  of  all  business,  as  they  are 
the  basis  of  the  state. 

He  who  saves  from  his  earnings  is  at  once 
a  capitalist.     Capital,  like  land,  is  a  material.  The  Capi- 
not  human,  factor  in  production,  yet  also,  *^^^^^ 
like  land,  it  is  good  only  for  and  by  human 
III 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

use.  Unlike  land,  it  has  human  origin,  in 
the  virtue  of  frugality,  of  which  miserliness 
is  the  counterfeit  vice.  And  it  is  capital, 
savings,  which  makes  human  progress  pos- 
sible. The  seed  which  the  farmer  saves  to 
sow  is  capital ;  and  when  famine  compelled 
the  New  England  settlers  to  eat  their  seed- 
corn,  their  capital  was  gone,  they  had  no- 
thing to  go  on  with,  death  stared  them  in 
the  face. 

Capital  is  in  fact  the  seed  from  which 
Capital  the  all  industry  proceeds  ;  a  man's  breakfast,  his 
dustry  ""  clothes,  his  house,  his  tools,  the  steam- 
engine,  the  factory,  the  material  on  which 
he  works,  are  the  pre-requisites  for  pro- 
duction. Without  these,  he  is  a  hungry 
savage.  With  them,  all  civilization  helps 
him  do  his  work.  The  only  panacea  for  the 
"  labor  difficulty  "  is  that  in  times  of  prosper- 
ity and  good  wages  frugality  should  save  and 
store  for  the  laborer  the  capital  on  which  to 
live  while  he  is  out  of  a  job,  —  whether  be- 
cause of  the  new  machine,  or  the  bettered 
method,  or  the  slackness  of  work,  —  and  it  is 
to  the  advantage  of  the  community  that  wages 
should  be  high  enough  to  give  him  margin 
for  this  saving.  If  a  man  has  not  saved,  he 
must  let  his  labor  to  those  who  have  saved, 

112 


OF   BUSINESS 

or  borrow  from  them  money  to  buy  these 
helps,  by  aid  of  which  he  can  pay  out  of  his 
increased  productivity  interest  for  the  use  of 
capital  and  still  have  more  earnings  left  for 
himself. 

Capital  adds  value  to  things  by  storing 
them  till  they  are  wanted,  as  food  for  winter  Capital  adds 
and  ice  for  summer,  and  it  adds  value  to  ^^^^ 
men  by  giving  them  the  wherewithal,  as 
tools  and  material,  to  work  to  best  advan- 
tage. It  is  therefore  the  friend  and  not  the 
enemy,  not  the  destruction  but  the  salva- 
tion, of  labor.  No  one  borrows  capital  unless 
he  expects  to  gain  by  the  loan.  Because  it 
is  measured  in  money  and  deposited  through 
banks,  we  think  of  capital  as  money  only ; 
but  interest  is  paid  really  for  the  use  of  the 
things  which  money  buys.  The  miser  gains 
no  interest  from  the  money  he  uselessly 
hoards,  nor  can  money  in  banks  earn  interest 
until  it  is  loaned  out  for  use,  nor  can  "stocks  '* 
and  "bonds"  pay  unless  their  proceeds  are 
put  to  paying  use. 

Capital  is  paid  by  a  share  of  product,  but 
a  decreasing  share.     As  wages  rise,  interest  Capital  paid 
falls.     For   with  increased   product,  higher  ^^  Interest 
wages  and  larger  profits,  there  is  more  mar- 
gin for  savings,  the  wealth  of  the  world,  its 
113 


and  Interest 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

saved  capital,  increases  even  beyond  indus- 
trial development,  there  is  less  proportionate 
demand,  and  the  pay  for  capital  falls.  It  is 
only  where  property  is  insecure  or  where 
there  is  risk  of  loss,  as  in  new  communities 
Insurance  or  in  new  enterprises,  that  an  insurance  pre- 
mium, added  as  it  were  in  interest,  seems  to 
make  interest  high,  for  on  secure  investments 
the  price  of  **  securities  "  rises  until  the  per- 
centage of  return  is  close  to  the  usual  rate  of 
interest.  The  decrease  in  interest  pinches 
the  widow  and  orphan,  who  must  live  upon 
the  '*  fixed  income  "  of  past  savings,  as  well 
as  the  drone  in  the  human  hive  who  lives 
on  his  father's  earnings,  but  it  gives  better 
chances  to  the  world's  workers.  Except 
when  capital  is  "  a  drug  in  the  market "  be- 
cause of  bad  times  and  lack  of  business,  a 
low  rate  of  interest  helps  business ;  and 
banks,  sound,  safe,  and  well  managed,  shops 
through  which  capital  in  the  form  of  money 
is  gathered  in  and  let  out  for  use,  are,  like 
other  good  stores,  a  gain  to  the  community, 
tending  to  reduce  the  cost  of  loans  as  all 
shops  tend  to  reduce  prices. 

The  industrial  organization  is  a  great  army 
of  peace,   which   must  be   officered.      The 
114 


OF   BUSINESS 

privates,  or  hand-workers,  must  work  under  The  Direc 

tor    "    ' 
try 


direction;  and  it  is  the  captain  of  industry,  toroflndus- 


the  director,  the  brain-worker,  who  leads  his 
men  to  success.  By  directing  work  to  best 
purpose,  he  makes  the  most  of  labor  and 
gives  workers  their  best  chance,  and  benefits 
the  world.  Colt,  arranging  for  his  revolver 
the  interchangeability  of  parts,  set  an  ex- 
ample which  soon  gave  to  American  me- 
chanical products  a  commanding  position  in 
foreign  markets;  the  standardizing  of  sizes 
and  shapes,  as  of  wire,  bolts,  screws,  and 
nuts,  by  intelligent  cooperation  of  the  di- 
recting class,  has  been  of  untold  practical 
and  money  value  to  the  world.  What  the 
director  does  for  the  moment,  the  inventor 
does  for  all  time,  —  saving  labor  and  better- 
ing the  laborer.  The  welfare  of  labor  has 
kept  steady  pace  with  the  progress  of  inven- 
tion, for  with  each  laborer  saved  there  has 
been  new  opportunity  for  two. 

Brains  also  must  have  its  pay;  and  the 
intellectual  and  moral  qualities  of  intelli-  The  Pay  of 
gence,  ingenuity,  courage,  enterprise,  integ-  ^^^^^s 
rity,  deserve  and  get  high  pay.  It  is  the 
combination  of  all,  in  rare  men,  that  gets  the 
best  pay  —  in  the  double  reward  of  money 
return  and  of  developed  personal  character ; 
115 


Profit 


The  Direc- 
tor's Share 
of  Product 


THE   ARTS    OF   LIFE 

for  neither  intelligence  without  integrity  nor 
integrity  without  intelligence  can  win  abid- 
ing and  entire  success.  It  used  to  be  said 
that  rent,  wages,  and  "profit,"  —  the  pay  for 
land,  labor,  and  capital,  —  make  up  the  cost 
of  product.  But  capital  is  paid  for  by  inter- 
est, and  profit  is  truly  the  difference  between 
cost  and  price.  Out  of  this  difference  the 
director,  as  also  the  inventor,  gets  his  pay. 
He  does  not  add  to  the  cost  of  product,  but 
lessens  it ;  utilizing  capital,  saving  labor,  in- 
creasing product,  decreasing  cost,  he  saves 
alike  for  the  capitalist,  the  laborer,  and  the 
consumer.  Usually,  the  director  commutes 
this  pay  from  profit  into  a  stated  salary,  and 
the  inventor  into  an  "  outright  "  or  "  royalty  " 
payment,  and  because  also  the  employer  of 
labor  usually  supplies  or  obtains  the  capital, 
or  the  capitalist  employs  the  director  at  a 
salary,  the  interest  which  is  the  pay  of  capital 
and  the  residual  profit  from  which  direction 
gets  its  pay  have  been  generally  confused. 

But  it  is  always  on  the  ability  to  make  profit, 
through  the  administration  or  the  machinery 
which  reduces  cost,  that  the  director's  pay 
depends.  When  he  mis-directs  production, 
so  that  cost  exceeds  price,  the  business  fails, 
and  there  is  no  place  for  him.  As  cost  de- 
ii6 


OF   BUSINESS 

creases,  and  rivals  adopt  his  or  better  methods 
and  machinery,  competition  reduces  prices, 
and  profit  lessens  towards  nothing,  until  a 
new  improvement  again  reduces  cost.  Thus 
the  director  gets  a  decreasing  share  of  pro- 
duct ;  yet  the  enormous  growth  of  business 
with  industrial  development  so  aggrandizes 
the  total  returns  as  to  assure  to  an  able 
manager  a  large  and  increasing  salary  — 
which  is  not  taken  from  the  producer  or  con- 
sumer but  benefits  both.  With  each  improve- 
ment the  good  organizer  or  administrator  by 
so  much  makes  himself  unnecessary,  but  the 
possibilities  of  improvement  are  so  inexhaust- 
ible that  at  each  step  forward  he  becomes 
of  increasing  instead  of  decreasing  impor- 
tance. 

Modern  development  has  indeed  evolved 
in  this  field  a  new  kind  of  calling,  the  ex-  Theexecu- 
ecutive  profession.  The  skilled  executive 
applies  his  brains  —  his  native  powers  and 
his  utilized  experience — to  ever-new  prob- 
lems in  the  course  of  daily  business,  until 
he  develops  the  capability  of  applying  him- 
self successively  or  simultaneously  to  many 
kinds  of  business,  as  a  lawyer  or  a  doc- 
tor takes  up  his  varied  "cases."  This  is 
the  modern  "  man  of  business : "  a  great 
117 


tive  Profes- 
sion 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

banker,  a  business  lawyer,  the  head  of  an 
industrial  corporation,  the  president  of  a 
university,  the  bishop  of  a  diocese,  gains 
success  from  qualities  which  these  all  have  in 
common  and  which  they  apply  in  differing 
environments,  rather  than  to  special  qual- 
ities connected  with  the  specific  environment. 
These  men  are  in  great  measure  interchange- 
able. They  will  master  a  new  set  of  facts,  of 
circumstances,  as  a  lawyer  will  master  a  new 
case.  This  kind  of  success  involves  indeed 
a  great  danger  in  personal  character.  The 
bishop  becomes  more  a  secular  than  a  spirit- 
ual person.  The  banker,  dealing  with  money, 
hardens  to  men  and  loses  qualities  of  soul. 

There  is  still  another  element  in  produc- 
The  social     tion  —  usually  forgotten  or  concealed,  but  in 
Production    some   respects   the   most   important   of  all. 
This  is  the  contribution  of  the  social  organ- 
ization.    The   settler  in  savage  wilds  must 
waste  a  great  part  of  his  time  and  force  in 
defending  himself  against  beasts  or   savage 
man,  in  making  his  clearing,  in  building  his 
road,  in  a  thousand  disadvantages  of  unor- 
ganized life.     This  waste  from  productivity, 
civilization,    the   social   organization,   saves. 
As  government,  it  assures  to  him  the  peace- 
Ii8 


OF  BUSINESS 

ful  use  of  all  his  powers  for  productive  pur- 
pose, and  gives  him  numberless  facilities,  for 
which  it  gets  pay  in  taxes.  As  a  public  cor-  Taxes 
poration,  it  builds  him  a  turnpike  and  gets 
pay  in  tolls,  or  a  railroad  which  replaces 
road,  wagon,  and  horse,  and  gets  pay  in 
freight ;  or  supplies  him  gas  replacing  the 
house-made  "dip"  at  great  cooperative  sav- 
ing. The  voluntary  payment  for  tolls,  freight, 
and  light  is  itself  proof  that  it  would  cost  the 
user  more  to  build  his  own  road,  transport 
his  own  goods,  make  light  for  himself  — 
despite  all  grumblings  at  high  charges  ;  but 
the  compulsory  payment  of  the  road  tax,  the 
water  rate,  the  school  tax,  the  pay  of  police, 
and  other  communal  expenses  increasing 
public  facilities  or  promoting  the  common 
weal,  obscures  their  economic  value.  The 
school  tax,  for  instance,  gives  better  human 
tools  and  saves  cost  of  prisons.  Thus  taxes  Taxes  may- 
are  a  part  of  cost,  and  with  the  increase  of  f^cTcasc  °^ 
public  facilities  perhaps  an  increasing  part  of  Price 
cost,  though  again  these,  rightly  levied  and 
applied,  may  decrease  price.  Productive 
taxes,  as  these  may  be  called,  are  among 
the  best  investments  of  the  community  and 
of  the  business  man.  But  there  is  nothing 
that  more  needs  watching  as  a  factor  in  cost, 
•       119 


Mis- 
directed 
Taxation 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

for  because  of  its  compulsory  character  no 
factor  is  so  liable  to  abuse.  In  mis-directed 
or  "crooked"  taxation,  taxes  do  increase 
prices,  and  are  at  last  paid  by  those  who  can 
least  afford  to  pay  them.  Thus  a  tax  on 
mortgages  raises  the  rate  of  interest  to  the 
borrower,  as  surely  as  the  price  of  telegrams 
is  raised  to  the  sender  by  the  penny  stamp 
he  is  required  to  put  on.  The  degenerate 
countries  of  Latin  Europe,  as  Spain  and  Italy, 
are  kept  in  grinding  poverty  —  prices  and 
all  cost  of  living  and  working  increased,  in- 
dustry thwarted,  export  and  therefore  im- 
port trade  blocked  —  because  of  excessive 
taxes.  Confiscating  sometimes  half  the  crop 
or  the  wage,  levied  upon  production  and  ex- 
change, these  taxes  are  not  used  to  increase 
public  facilities,  but  to  withdraw  for  wasteful 
armies  and  navies  men  from  production  and 
capital  from  use,  to  pay  interest  on  huge 
public  debts,  and  to  bar  every  gate  towards 
prosperity.  The  commercial  greatness  of 
England  has  been  developed  in  great  part  by 
confining  taxes  to  their  productive  use. 


Product 
pays  all 


Product  pays  all  —  rent,  wages,  interest, 
taxes,  profit.  Of  these  five  elements,  rent 
and  wages  and  taxes,  all  being  pay  for  labor 

I20 


OF   BUSINESS 

or  labor-saving  facilities,  tend  constantly  to 
increase ;  interest  and  profit  to  decrease.  The 
pay  of  labor  increases  as  modern  invention 
and  improvement  develop  machines  or 
methods  by  which,  from  the  same  expendi- 
ture of  human  labor,  product  is  increased. 
Rent,  the  pay  for  the  use  of  the  more  pro-  Rent  and 
ductive  land,  is  the  equivalent  of  so  much  wfth^Wages 
labor  saved  from  wasteful  expenditure  on 
poorer  land,  which  needs  more  labor  to  pro- 
duce like  product.  A  fall  in  rent,  in  fact, 
usually  betokens  loss  :  in  the  case  of  New 
England,  lands  thrown  out  of  cultivation  by 
the  opening  of  more  productive  lands  at  the 
West,  or  of  shops  in  a  city  left  vacant  by  the 
offering  of  better  facilities  elsewhere,  a  loss  to 
the  proprietor  offset  by  economic  gain  to  the 
community  ;  in  the  case  of  mistaken  improve- 
ments or  of  trade  depression,  a  loss  to  all. 
Taxes,  as  the  pay  for  public  facilities,  are  the 
equivalent  of  so  much  labor  saved  from  pri- 
vate expenditure,  as  for  roads,  water,  watch- 
ing ;  though,  when  wrongly  levied  so  as  to 
increase  cost  or  check  trade,  or  wastefully 
expended  otherwise  than  in  the  increase  of 
public  facilities,  they  may  be  a  large  factor  in 
increasing  price.  Thus  both  rent  and  taxes 
follow  the  law  of  labor-pay  and  increase  with 

121 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

wages,  and  though  a  part  of  cost  do  not  nor- 
mally increase  price.  The  rise  of  wages 
keeps  pace  with  increase  of  product  and  de- 
crease of  price  ;  for  labor  gets  an  increasing 
share  of  product  as  interest  and  profit  dimin- 
ish. But  as  "  time  wages "  rise,  "  piece- 
wages  "  fall,  in  a  perpetual  process  of  bal- 
ancing the  return  for  the  day's  work,  because 
by  help  of  inventions  a  worker  can  do  more 
and  more  piece-work  within  the  day  and  its 
pay. 

With  higher  wages,  increased  prosper- 
As  Prices  ity,  greater  savings  and  lower  prices,  the 
riie  ^^^^^  whole  world  wants  more  and  buys  more  ; 
greater  purchasing  power  means  increased 
demand.  Thus  there  can  be  no  over-pro- 
duction of  the  things  that  are  wanted :  it  is 
mis-directed  production  of  things  not  wanted, 
or  the  interference  with  the  purchasing  power 
of  the  people  by  mis-directed  distribution, 
that  brings  about  "  bad  times  "  and  the  un- 
healthy state  where  prices  fall  below  cost  and 
industry  is  checked.  The  whole  trend  of 
industrial  evolution  is  to  pay  more  for  men 
and  less  for  things,  and  thus  results  the 
seeming  contradiction  that  as  prices  fall, 
wages  rise. 


122 


OF  BUSINESS 

The  employment  of  one  man  by  another, 
partnerships,  cooperative  associations  on  a  Cooperation 
large  scale,  have  been  steps  in  industrial  rationr^°" 
organization,  utilizing  the  cooperation  of 
labor  for  the  common  good.  Those  who  had 
savings  loaned  them  as  capital  for  such  busi- 
ness, conducted  by  others,  or  intrusted  them 
to  a  super-cargo  or  ship-captain  as  "  ventures  " 
in  foreign  trade.  But  as  savings  and  wealth 
increased,  there  was  evolved  a  new  coopera- 
tion of  capital  in  the  joint-stock  company,  or 
corporation,  through  which  investors  might 
delegate  the  responsibility  of  direction  to 
directors  or  managers  chosen  by  themselves. 
At  first  each  shareholder  was  liable,  as  a 
partner,  for  all  the  joint  debts.  To  abate 
this  risk,  the  state  was  invoked,  and  laws 
were  passed  authorizing  "  limited  liability  " 
companies,  in  which  the  sharer  was  relieved 
of  pecuniary  responsibility  beyond  his  share. 
Thus  the  modern  corporation  is  a  creature 
of  the  state,  an  artificial  person,  "  having  no 
soul,"  that  is,  without  personal  responsibility,  //" 

and  "  never  dying,"  that  is,  without  prospect  / 

of  the  property  changes,  sometimes  remedial 
and  wholesome,  wrought  by  death. 

A  personally  directed  business,  other  con- 
ditions being  even,  has   advantage  over  a 
123 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

corporate  business  ;  but  perpetuity,  the  limi- 
The  Rivalry  tation  of  liability,  and  ready  transferability  of 
tion°'^^°'^^"  ownership,  inviting  large  aggregation  of  cap- 
ital which  in  turn  made  possible  and  neces- 
sary the  highest  directive  ability,  over-bal- 
anced this  natural  advantage.  With  increase 
of  business,  the  extra  expenses  of  corporate 
management  were  offset  by  great  directive 
skill ;  and  private  concerns  doing  a  smaller 
business  at  larger  proportionate  cost  were 
supplanted  by  the  competition  of  public  com- 
panies. But  now  rival  corporations  entered 
the  field,  and  "railroad  wars,"  "gas  wars," 
and  other  "  cut-throat  competition,"  under- 
selling below  cost,  demoralized  investment 
and  industry.  Without  state  interference, 
this  suicidal  course  would  have  found  its  end 
in  the  bankruptcy  of  the  mis-directed  and 
losing  company  and  the  survival  of  the  wiser 
and  stronger  under  bettered  conditions.  But 
the  natural  results  of  "over-capitalization,*' 
"  stock- watering  "  or  mis-direction  were  pre- 
vented by  the  corporate  privilege  and  by  the 
devices  of  "receiverships"  and  "re-organi- 
zation," too  often  pretexts  for  new  spolia- 
tion. To  forestall  or  mitigate  this  corporate 
competition,  "  pools  "  were  devised  to  divide 
business  or  regulate  prices  —  but  these 
124 


OF   BUSINESS 

proved   only   a  temporary   and    inadequate 
makeshift. 

Combinations  into  "Trusts,"  so  called  and 
mis-called  because  arranged  through  trustees,  "  Trusts 
were  formed  to  surmount  this  competition. 
The  government  had  set  an  example  in  the 
Post-office  monopoly,  against  which  compe- 
tition was  prohibited  by  law  as  a  misde- 
meanor, and  this  first  unification  of  a  great 
industry  had  been  of  such  benefit  to  the 
great  body  of  the  people  that  its  pecuniary 
losses  were  condoned  or  overlooked.  The 
consolidation  of  local  railroads  into  through- 
line  systems,  initiated  by  the  elder  Vander- 
bilt,  to  the  great  benefit  of  traffic  and  travel, 
was  a  long  stride  toward  the  unification  of 
industries.  The  pioneer  Trust,  unifying  the 
oil  industry,  having  neither  governmental 
privilege  nor  municipal  franchise,  obtained 
monopolistic  control  by  purchase  of  lands, 
by  obtaining  railroad  discriminations,  by  per- 
secution of  business  rivals,  and  by  corruption 
and  domination  of  legislatures  —  with  the 
mixed  result  that  it  gave  the  public  a  staple 
product  of  better  quality  at  lowered  price  and 
produced  overweening  fortunes,  one  of  them 
the  greatest  burden  of  wealth  in  the  whole 
world,  at  vast  cost  of  public  demoralization. 
125 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

This  unification  of  industries  has  now  ex- 
tended into  most  fields,  particularly  those  of 
municipal  franchises,  often  with  great  possi- 
bilities of  benefit  —  economically,  within  the 
industry,  in  the  prevention  of  waste  from  mis- 
directed competition  and  commercially  to  the 
public  in  standardizing  and  bettering  product 
within  or  below  former  price. 

But  these  possible  advantages  are  ob- 
Their  Evils  scured,  if  not  offset,  by  evident  and  great 
disadvantages.  Trusts  have  too  often  sought 
first  of  all  to  maintain  or  increase  prices, 
sometimes  in  face  of  a  natural  reduction  in 
prices  which,  effective  despite  their  efforts, 
has  given  a  trust  credit  it  has  not  deserved. 
Moreover,  the  separation  of  the  "  hand  "  from 
the  head  is  carried  to  an  extreme  in  which 
consciousness  of  and  conscience  for  human 
relations  are  eliminated.  Worst  of  all  are  the 
great  public  demoralizations  —  politically  by 
the  corruption  of  public  and  business  life  and 
financially  by  the  conscienceless  methods  of 
"  promoters  "  and  the  reckless  manufacture 
by  bankers  of  ** watered"  securities  to  the 
full  margin  of  present  or  prospective  in- 
come. Thus  the  creatures  of  the  state  have 
become  captors  of  the  state,  demoralizing 
public  conscience  and  private  standards. 
126 


OF   BUSINESS 

Men  upright  in  personal  relations,  when  re-  i  \ 

lieved  of  personal  responsibility,  will  permit  ^ 

a  corporation  of  which  they  are  shareholders 
or  directors  to  do  what  they  would  not  do 
for  themselves  ;  and  a  corporate  manager  is 
too  often  expected  to  dull  his  conscience  into 
acquiescence  in  bribery  by  the  soothing  fal- 
lacy that  as  a  trustee  for  those  who  have 
committed  money  to  his  keeping,  he  had 
better  give  over  a  part  to  highwaymen  than 
risk  the  loss  of  all. 

The  evils  that  the  state  has  done  the  state 
must  undo  —  not  by  a  state  socialism  which  The  Rem- 
may  prove  more  tyrannous  than  the  tyrants  ^fe  Pubh- 
it  would  overthrow,  but  by  "  turning  on  the 
light "  of  publicity  upon  the  creatures  of 
public  privilege,  and  in  cases  of  public  fran- 
chises by  recovering  to  the  people  through 
the  sovereign  right  of  eminent  domain  or  of 
taxation,  values  which  the  public  create  and 
to  which  they  have  just  right.  State-created 
corporations  should  be  state-regulated.  Or- 
ganized under  public  authority,  they  are  t/^so 
facto  open  to  public  inspection  and  respon- 
sible to  public  opinion.  Publicity  through 
public  accountants,  as  in  the  national  banking 
system,  is  a  chief  safeguard,  in  a  fulfillment 
by  state  authority  of  the  system  partially 
127 


THE  ARTS    OF   LIFE 

developed  by  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange 
in  '*  listing  "  securities,  so  that  stockholders 
and  the  public  may  have  the  full  facts  as  to 
organization,  valuation,  and  administration. 
A  private  business  is  no  one's  business  but 
Public  Re-  the  owner's,  but  he  is  personally  liable  and 
sponsibihty  responsible  ;  the  public  business  of  a  corpo- 
ration, freed  from  private  liability,  must  ac- 
cept public  responsibility.  The  law  of  New 
York  requires  that  corporate  shares  may  be 
paid-in  only  in  cash  or  property,  dollar  for 
dollar,  but  in  the  absence  of  public  account- 
ing for  property  value,  huge  stock-jobbing 
operations,  financed  by  men  personally  of 
good  repute,  fleece  the  public.  When  the 
public  knows  all,  when  the  dangers  from 
limited  liability  and  delegated  responsibility 
are  met  by  full  publicity,  when  social  ostra- 
cism waits  the  man  whose  fortune  or  power 
is  won  at  cost  of  conscience,  when  a  due 
share  of  return  to  the  public  is  required  for 
public  privilege,  the  ills  which  corporations 
have  brought  upon  the  state  may  find  cure 
without  sacrifice  of  the  benefits  they  bring 
and  without  further  surrender  of  personal 
rights  and  opportunities  to  a  still  huger 
state-created  machine  of  socialism. 


128 


OF   BUSINESS 

As  private  enterprise  and  individual  cooper- 
ation have  been  made  more  difficult  by  the  Labor  Com- 
emergence  of  directing  ability,  especially  in  ^"^^^°^^ 
the  development  of  great  corporations,  the 
individual  worker  has  felt  the  more  need  to 
combine  with  other  workers  to  "hold  his 
own."  The  first  impulse  in  such  combina- 
tions is  a  policy  of  restricting  work.  For  a 
first  effect  of  saving  labor  —  by  wiser  direc- 
tion, a  better  method,  a  new  machine  —  is 
to  throw  some  man  out  of  work,  to  make  him 
for  the  moment  useless,  to  "take  the  bread 
out  of  his  mouth."  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
Nature's  readjustments  for  the  race  are  at  the 
cost  of  displacement  to  the  individual.  But 
it  is  poor  solace  to  a  starving  man  to  tell  him 
that  next  year  he  will  have  more  bread  than 
he  wants.  This  is  why  labor  has  always 
been  against  labor-saving  machinery  ;  why  it 
drove  Arkwright  from  his  home,  broke  up  the 
spinning-jenny  of  Hargreaves,  and  mobbed 
Jacquard  ;  why  in  face  of  the  proved  fact  that 
in  the  long  run  invention  helps  labor,  it  has 
in  the  short  run  opposed  inventions.  Here  is 
the  key  to  the  conflict,  mistakenly  called 
between  labor  and  capital,  which  is  really  a 
protest  of  self-defense  by  the  laborer  against 
the  director  of  industry  who  saves  labor  and 
129 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

lessens  work.  Thus  organized  laboi',  natu- 
rally enough,  first  sets  itself  to  increase  work, 
to  get  work  and  wages  for  more  workers,  and 
therefore  seeks  to  restrict  apprenticeship,  re- 
strict hours,  restrict  over-time,  restrict  even 
the  amount  one  man  may  do  in  an  hour.  The 
stated  and  valid  reason  for  an  eight-hour  day 
is  to  give  the  laborer  useful  and  uplifting  lei- 
sure ;  the  immediate  motive  of  the  labor  or- 
ganizations is  to  get  more  days'  work  for  its 
members,  and  of  the  laborer  to  get  a  higher 
rate  per  hour  and  then  work  over-time. 
Yet  restriction  is  a  policy  of  short-sight. 
The  Policy  The  best  service  is  done  by  the  ship  captain 
who  brings  the  largest  cargo  safe  to  port  by 
the  most  direct  route  in  the  fewest  days  — 
though  his  crew  gets  fewer  days'  pay.  The 
world  is  the  richer.  This  is  real  prosperity. 
If  the  captain  is  swept  overboard  in  the 
storm,  and  the  rudder  breaks,  and  the  cargo 
shifts,  and  at  last  ship  and  cargo  and  crew 
go  down  together,  the  need  for  new  captain, 
new  crew,  new  ship,  new  cargo  "  makes 
trade  brisk."  But  all  that  has  gone  down  is 
loss  to  the  world  and  to  each  laborer  in  it. 
This  is  adversity  in  masquerade.  It  is  at 
this  cost  that  war  and  cyclone  and  the  Black 
Death  have  made  "business  good"  and 
130 


of  Restric 
tion 


OF  BUSINESS 

"wages  high."  Restriction  is  the  natural 
impulse  of  self-defense  against  progress  —  as 
the  owners  of  cows  opposed  Stephenson's 
railroad.  The  story  of  the  lad  Humphrey  ff 
Potter,  tying  a  string  to  the  engine  valves 
that  he  might  have  time  to  play,  and  throw- 
ing himself  out  of  a  job,  is  the  eternal  type 
of  labor-saving  progress.  But  progress  can- 
not be  "downed."  The  invention  comes  into 
use;  the  next  generation  has  its  work  done 
by  the  machine,  but  gets  higher  pay  for 
tending  that. 

The  mainspring  of  business  is  the  desire 
of  each  worker,  whether  with  hands  or  brain,  The  "  Open 
to  market  his  labor  or  product  to  the  best  ^°°'" 
advantage,  to  get  for  it  the  most  money  or 
the  most  reward.  This  leads  him  to  desire 
the  widest  market  for  himself,  and  the  nar- 
rowest for  his  rival.  The  makeshift  of  re- 
striction is  thus  a  first  impulse  alike  of  the  \\ 
labor  union,  the  merchants'  guild,  the  trading 
nation.  Each  wants  the  "open  door"  for 
itself  —  but  a  shut  door  against  its  competi- 
tors. Each  wants  its  "home  market"  and 
the  foreign  market  too,  forgetful  that  the 
foreign  market  is  simply  the  aggregated 
home  markets  of  other  peoples.  This  policy 
becomes  the  war  theory  of  trade  and  is  the 
131 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 


True  Trade 
Peace  not 
War 


The  true 
Value  of 
Trades 
Unions 


easy  road  to  actual  war,  industrial  or  between 
nations.  But  a  true  commerce  is  the  evan- 
gel of  peace ;  in  true  trade,  each  person  gains, 
else  he  would  not  trade  ;  "  a  good  bargain  is 
one  in  which  both  gain."  A  man  needs  not 
only  to  work  at  his  best,  but  to  get  from  his 
neighbor  work  at  the  neighbor's  best ;  then 
all  are  best  off.  If  he  is  good  at  shoemaking 
and  his  neighbor  at  tailoring,  he  sells  shoes 
and  buys  clothes.  It  does  n't  pay  to  set  a 
man  to  do  a  boy's  work,  nor  a  boy  to  do  a 
man's  work.  When  the  carpenters*  union 
in  New  York  sought  to  prevent  work  on 
wooden  sashes  or  mouldings  made  outside 
the  city,  and  the  masons  to  prevent  work  on 
stone  dressed  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
union,  they  not  only  declared  war  against 
fellow-workers  in  the  lumber  regions  of 
Michigan  and  the  quarries  of  Vermont,  but 
by  preventing  labor-saving  in  manufacture 
and  transportation,  they  increased  the  cost 
of  building  and  limited  their  own  field  of 
work. 

As  an  injustice  to  one  is  an  injury  to  all, 
conversely  a  benefit  to  all  is  a  good  to  each. 
The  true  and  great  value  of  trades  unions  is 
not  in  "  downing "  the  outside  workingman 
as  a  "scab,"  or  waging  always  costly  and 
132 


OF   BUSINESS 

often  wasteful  strikes,  or  imposing  restric- 
tions upon  industry  and  production,  but  in 
raising  the  standard  of  workmanship  among 
its  members,  so  that  the  union  "  card  "  is  a  cer-  . 
tificate  which  outside  workmen  become  ambi-  // 
tious  to  gain,  as  their  best  recommendation ; 
in  organizing  methods  of  adjusting  wages 
and  of  arbitration  ;  in  promoting  improve- 
ments within  the  trade ;  and  in  providing  as 
benefit  associations  for  members  thrown 
temporarily  out  of  work  without  fault  of  their 
own,  or  in  cases  of  sickness,  infirmity,  and 
death.  Thus  the  individual  has  the  benefit 
of  the  organization  in  "holding  his  own" 
by  the  methods  of  peace  and  not  of  war. 
The  extraordinary  rise  in  the  pay  of  house- 
servants,  without  trade  union  help,  shows 
that  it  is  by  natural  laws  of  supply  and  de- 
mand rather  than  by  artificial  pressure  that 
increase  of  wages  is  brought  about. 

Restriction  is  garbed  always  in  guise  of 
the  upholding  of  the  standard  of  wages  or  "  The  For- 
of  living,  or  the  protection  of  guild  rights,  U^^" 
or  the  promotion  of  home  industry;  but  it         // 
overlooks  always  "  the  forgotten  man  "  who  is 
its  victim,  and  it  is  too  short-sighted  to  fore- 
see how  its   boomerang  returns  to  its  own 
hurt.      The    free    workingman    becomes    a 
133 


the  Trader 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

"scab,"  and  smuggling  is  promoted  as  a 
criminal  industry.  "  The  forgotten  man  " 
is  always  to  be  remembered  in  a  full  account- 
ing of  human  affairs. 

The  trader  is  another  man  who  gets  "  pro- 
Exchange  :  fit  "  by  virtue  of  his  direction,  not  of  produc- 
tion, but  of  exchange.  The  merchant  or 
shop-keeper  does  for  the  community  the 
service  of  facilitating  barter  by  enabling  any 
buyer  to  get  what  he  wants,  where  and  when 
he  wants  it,  by  purchase  with  money.  This 
is  a  great  economic  gain  over  the  direct  bar- 
ter of  labor  or  "  swap  "  of  goods,  as  when  the 
farmer  had  to  find  a  shoemaker  who  wanted 
potatoes  before  he  could  get  a  pair  of  shoes. 
A  trader  who  supplies  to  the  trading  public 
what  it  wants  earns  a  fair  profit  for  his  time, 
skill,  and  good  judgment ;  one  who  mistakes 
the  public  demand  and  thus  promotes  mis- 
direction of  production  pays  the  penalty  in 
"  failure  "  and  "  forced  sale  "  of  his  goods  at 
a  price  which  will  induce  buyers  to  buy  at  a 
"bargain" — requiring  the  seller  to  sell  at 
loss  and  inducing  the  buyer  to  buy  what  he 
does  n't  need.  It  is  not  wholesome  morally 
to  get  something  for  nothing  or  wholesome 
economically  to  have  price  below  cost.  But 
134 


OF   BUSINESS 

within  the  margin  of  profit,  competition  be- 
tween shops,  in  meeting  the  public  demand 
and  selling  at  the  lowest  charge  for  the  ser- 
vice rendered,  fulfills  the  law  of  progress. 

The  same  causes  and  conditions  which  in 
production  have  developed  trusts,  with  their  Department 
good  and  their  evil,  have  in  this  field  devel-  ^^°^®^ 
oped  the  *'  department  stores  "  of  "  wholesale 
retailers."  These  command  manufacturers, 
import  through  their  own  foreign  buyers, 
lower  prices  by  dispensing  with  the  profits  of 
numerous  middlemen,  unify  retailing  by 
bringing  all  kinds  of  goods  together  under 
one  roof,  to  the  great  time-  labor-  and  money- 
saving  of  the  public ;  and  demoralize  trade 
and  ruin  more  conservative  traders  by  '*  bar- 
gain-counter "  sales  not  less  demoralizing 
to  the  feverish  throng  of  women  buyers 
to  whose  cupidity  these  gambles  appeal. 
Against  them  restrictive  legislation  even 
more  fatuous  and  futile  than  that  directed 
against  trusts  has  been  proposed,  but  the 
only  cure  for  the  evils  which  for  the  time 
accompany  their  real  service  to  the  public  is 
to  be  found  in  a  wholesome  public  opinion 
and  private  good  sense,  that  will  restrain 
buyers  from  patronizing  shops  which  cater 
recklessly  to  public  greed,  and  from  buying 
135 


THE   ARTS    OF   LIFE 

at  any  price  what  they  don't  want.  These 
great  marts  of  trade  are  the  modern  equiva- 
lent of  the  ancient  market-place,  centralizing 
again  the  retail  trade  cumbrously  distributed 
among  petty  shops,  as  the  great  factory  has 
centralized  to  advantage  the  varied  product 
of  household  industries  ;  and  the  small  shop- 
keeper, earning  a  precarious  living  and  often 
bankrupt,  may  find  safer  place  in  the  great 
organization,  in  an  interdependence  which  is 
surer  than  his  independence.  The  neigh- 
borhood shops,  which  keep  a  local  store  of 
goods  for  immediate  demand,  as  the  baker, 
the  butcher,  the  grocer,  are  more  Hkely  to 
hold  their  own  against  centralized  competi- 
tion, because  they  better  serve  the  neighbor- 
hood need. 

There  are  other  classes  of  workers  who  do 
The  Profes-  not  add  value  to  things  but  to  men,  doing 
personal  instead  of  material  service  —  from 
the  "learned  professions"  down  to  the 
household  servant.  The  ministry  to  souls 
and  bodies  —  of  the  preacher  inspiring  spir- 
itual and  moral  development,  of  the  lawyer 
promoting  justice,  of  the  doctor  keeping  the 
physical  machinery  in  repair,  of  the  teacher 
educating  youth,  of  the  author  and  the  artist 
136 


sions 


OF   BUSINESS 

uplifting  and  delighting  by  literature  and 
art,  of  the  journalist  and  the  librarian 
spreading  intelligence  —  is  all  a  part  of  the 
world's  work,  in  these  ancillary  callings. 
And  household  service,  though  not  often 
does  it  "  make  drudgery  divine,"  is  division 
of  labor  with  good  economic  gain,  since,  by  its 
humbler  toil,  it  frees  the  time  and  strength 
of  those  of  higher  capacity  to  do  their  larger 
service  in  the  world.  The  able  men  of  the 
professions  command  high  remuneration  be- 
cause the  service  is  great  and  the  ability 
rare,  and  they  must  do  their  work,  which  is 
masterful  over  them,  at  much  sacrifice  of 
personal  convenience.  It  is  the  doctor  him-  Personal 
self  who  must  answer  the  call  of  duty  at  any  ^^^^^ 
hour  of  day  and  night ;  it  is  the  lawyer  in 
person  whose  ability  or  eloquence  his  client 
urgently  demands,  in  proportion  as  he  rises 
to  success  and  fame ;  while  the  administra- 
tor of  large  affairs  may  so  organize  his  busi- 
ness as  to  require  his  personal  presence  and 
his  hand  at  the  helm  only  at  the  convenient 
time  or  on  critical  occasion.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  "professions"  are  over-crowded, 
and  the  average  pay  reduced,  by  the  multi- 
tudes of  half-fit  people  who  throng  into 
them,  and  in  dull  routine  miss  the  great 
137 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

opportunities  these  callings  present.  For, 
next  to  the  statesman  and  the  corporate  ex- 
ecutive who  handle  large  affairs  of  state  or 
business  in  lines  of  "  light  and  leading,"  the 
professional  man,  dealing  in  vital  personal 
relations  with  his  fellows,  has  calling  and 
election  to  uplift  those  about  him  into  the 
larger  life,  to  give  "  life  more  abundantly," 
'  to   earn   a  reward  paid   not   only  in  mere 

money  but  in  richness  of  personal  life. 

Here,  too,  is  for  the  most  part  the  work  of 
The  eco-  woman,  in  the  profession  of  wife  and  mother, 
tions  of^  "  help-meet  of  man.  Her  economic  service  is 
Woman  not  less  rich  because  it  is  a  service  of  love, 
and  is  not  of  money  reward.  A  man's 
mother  has  invested  in  her  service  for  her 
son,  in  the  frugality  and  denial  which  has 
earned  for  him  his  education,  a  capital  which 
gives  him  his  value ;  and  his  wife  often 
earns  the  better  half  of  his  salary  by  her 
personal  service  of  devotion  to  him  and  by 
her  administration  of  his  household.  The 
world  will  be  better  off  when,  without  loss  of 
dignity  or  affection,  a  wife  may  receive  credit 
for  at  least  the  salary  a  husband  pays  to  his 
clerk.  A  household  "  budget  "  for  the  month 
or  year,  in  place  of  breakfast  wrangles  over 
bills  and  wherewithal   to   pay   them,  would 


OF   BUSINESS 

redeem  many  an  unhappy  home.  A  sound 
business  basis  is  as  necessary  for  the  affairs 
which  the  wife  administers  as  for  those  of 
the  husband,  and  forethought  is  the  more 
important.  A  truer  relation  of  woman  with 
economics  is  one  of  the  great  gains  of  pre- 
sent social  development,  as  the  economic 
subservience  of  woman  becomes  a  thing  of 
the  past,  and  the  economic  interdependence 
of  the  sexes  is  more  and  more  recognized. 

With  the  immense  accumulation  of  wealth 
from  increased  production  and  free  exchange,  The  Distri- 
its  distribution,  as  measured  in  money,  has  ^eaith°^ 
become  the  economic  problem  of  our  time. 
Wages  have  risen,  labor  gets  an  increasing 
share  of  product,  laborers  and  probably  most 
men  the  world  over  are  better  off  in  the 
means  of  life  than  ever  before  ;  yet  the  vast 
forces  put  by  the  industrial  and  social  organ- 
ization of  to-day  into  the  hands  of  the  few 
make  them  wealthy  and  powerful  to  a  degree 
that  inevitably  provokes  social  discontent. 
The  poor  are  not  growing  poorer.  But  the 
rich  are  growing  so  much  richer  —  for  a  man 
with  a  hundred  times  the  average  wealth  is 
no  longer  counted  rich,  but  must  multiply 
that  again  a  hundred  fold  —  that  the  contrast 
139 


THE    ARTS   OF   LIFE 

is  greater,  the  social  gap  wider,  with  every 

decade. 

This  overtopping  condition  of  wealth  is  nei- 
The  modern  ther  happy  for  the  individual  nor  wholesome 
Plutocrat       £^j.  ^j^g  g^^^g^     j^  jg  ^^^  ^  fortune  that  makes 

a  man  fortunate.  Croesus  was  not  happy 
either  as  tyrant  or  plutocrat.  Dante's  In- 
ferno had  no  fate  more  sad  than  those  in  our 
modern  life  —  of  men,  though  their  fortunes 
may  reach  from  the  hundred  toward  the 
thousand  millions,  who  bear  the  curses  of 
those  whom  their  methods  have  ruined  and 
from  the  homes  their  *'  operations "  have 
made  desolate;  who  live  in  terror  of  legal 
inquisition  or  bodily  assault ;  who  are  forced 
into  corruption  to  protect  their  fortunes  and 
cannot  do  the  good  they  would  gladly  use 
their  fortunes  for ;  whose  overwrought  nerves 
or  destroyed  stomachs  replace  the  joys  of 
life  with  tortures  as  of  the  damned ;  whose 
sons  are  set  against  them  by  the  curse  of 
money ;  whose  remains  must  be  sealed  under 
mountains  of  stone  against  the  speculation 
of  those  who  prey  on  the  dead  instead  of 
on  the  living ;  who  face  death  and  the  life  to 
come  with  souls  dead  and  hearts  cold  from 
lust  of  gain  and  brutality  of  power  —  horrors 
all  recorded  in  the  careers  of  one  or  another 
140 


OF   BUSINESS 

Dives  of  to-day.  Greatest  of  all  is  the  tra- 
gedy of  the  good  man  struggling  in  vain 
against  this  blighting  bane.     Heavy  indeed  •> 

is  the  burden  of  riches,  though  few  fear 
being  rich.  The  shepherd  complains  that  he 
must  watch  a  hundred  sheep,  but  envies  the 
man  who  must  care  for  a  million  dollars. 
Yet  an  Astor  could  use,  as  he  said,  only  a 
fair  salary  for  taking  care  of  his  fortune  —  a 
fortune  which  to  his  present  heirs  would  seem 
small. 

The  solution  of  this  problem  of  distribution 
is  more  and  more  seen  to  be  in  the  truth  that  Reclama- 
it  is  as  much  by  help  of  the  social  organiza-  xaxatLn 
tion  and  machinery  as  by  the  productive  or 
directive  power  of  any  one  man  that  these 
colossal  fortunes  are  evolved.  The  remedy 
is  not  in  futile  attempts  to  check  production 
or  saving,  or  to  repress  organization,  but  in 
making  sure  that  a  just  proportion  of  product 
is  returned  to  the  people  through  taxation. 
Taxes  on  production,  on  trade,  on  utilized 
savings,  on  improvements,  as  buildings  per- 
haps made  beautiful  by  lavish  outlay,  are 
fines  limiting  private  wealth-making  and  pub- 
lic welfare.  Taxes  on  unused  wealth,  as 
vacant  land  or  hoarded  gold,  on  the  rent  of 
land,  on  superior  incomes,  on  corporate  privi- 
141 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

leges  and  returns,  on  property  passing  at 
death  to  owners  who  have  not  earned  —  these 
are  contributions  reclaiming  for  the  people 
the  values  given  by  bounty  of  Nature  or  cre- 
ated by  help  of  the  community.  "  Unto 
each,  his  own  "  — to  the  worker,  his  share  in 
product ;  to  the  trader,  his  profit ;  to  the 
saver,  the  benefit  of  his  stored  capital ;  but 
also  to  the  people,  return  of  the  usufruct  of 
the  gifts  of  Nature  and  their  share  of  the 
wealth  all  the  people  have  helped  to  create. 
This  is  the  antipodes  of  socialism  and  com- 
The  Anti-  munism,  the  logical  result  of  that  interlock- 
Soc^V°m  ^^^  ^^  freedom  for  each  and  interdependence 
of  all  which  is  the  vital  spirit  of  democracy. 
It  is  thus  that  while  the  poor  are  made 
richer,  the  rich  will  not  be  made  poorer.  It 
is  thus  that  —  in  forest  preserves,  in  parks 
and  playgrounds,  in  better  roads  and  cleaner 
streets,  in  water  supply  and  drainage,  in 
schools,  libraries,  museums,  and  music,  for 
general  education  and  re-creation  rather  than 
mere  personal  amusement,  in  baths  and  pub- 
lic conveniences  —  the  people  will  get  as  a 
common  benefit,  returns  from  the  social  in- 
crement which  will  give  to  the  democracy 
as  a  public  right  what  European  sovereigns 
lavish  upon  their  subjects  as  a  gift,  without 
142 


OF   BUSINESS 

surrender,  to  the  delusive  paternalism  of  the 
socialistic  state,  of  the  private  rights  which 
are  the  bulwark  of  a  free  society.  It  is  thus 
that  the  free  man,  earning  his  own  living  to 
best  advantage,  will  be  able  to  pay  his  own 
way,  and  yet  enjoy  the  higher  standard 
of  life  made  possible  through  the  common- 
wealth. 

Men  work  and  save  that  they  may  use. 
At  the  last,  all  production  is  for  the  con-  Use  and 
sumer.  Consumption  is  thus,  in  economics,  ^^^^^ 
"the  end  of  the  whole  matter."  But  con- 
sumption may  be  use,  in  the  true  sense,  or  it 
may  be  waste,  the  false  use.  There  is  thrift 
in  spending  as  well  as  in  saving.  It  is  by 
the  consumption  of  food  or  fuel  that  work  is 
done  ;  but  our  "  drink-bill "  wastes  us  a  bil- 
lion dollars  annually.  The  rich  man  who 
gives  a  *'  ;^  10,000  ball"  is  praised  for  "mak- 
ing work  "  and  "  circulating  money  "  by  his 
extravagance  and  waste ;  but  the  capitalist 
who  invests  ^10,000  in  an  industrial  corpo- 
ration or  deposits  it  in  a  bank  to  be  loaned 
for  use,  utilizes  this  in  work  and  wages  to  / 

far  better  purpose,  "  turning  over  "  his  capi-  ^ 

tal  again  and  again.    The  one  lets  water  run  / 

to  waste  over  the  dam  ;  the  other  utilizes  it 
143 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

to  turn  the  mill-wheels  of  trade.  The  loss 
from  fire,  from  the  careless  treatment  of 
food,  from  the  social  waste  of  crime  and  pau- 
perism, from  the  industrial  waste  of  unem- 
ployed labor,  all  in  some  degree  preventable 
in  a  well-ordered  community,  are  alike  injuries 
to  the  commonwealth,  amounting  to  many 
times  the  total  taxation  or  the  aggregate 
saving.  In  a  great  city,  the  waste  of  aque- 
duct water  is  often  equal  to  the  use,  and  this 
is  almost  true  of  wealth  throughout  the 
nation.  The  poor  could  be  twice  as  well-to- 
do,  and  the  rich  no  poorer,  if  waste  were 
prevented  and  consumption  made  productive ; 
and  this  can  in  large  measure  be  accomplished 
by  individual  temperance  and  frugality,  by 
thrift  in  the  home,  by  watch  and  ward  over 
public  affairs  —  the  civic  virtues  which  indeed 
democracy  needs  in  economics  and  in  gov- 
ernment alike. 

Because  money  is  the  medium  of  trade 
Money  and  and  the  measure  of  wealth,  men  mistake  the 
symbol  for  the  reality  ;  forget  that  money  is 
not  a  good-in-itself,  an  end,  but  a  means 
only ;  and,  lacking  it,  desire  it  for  itself. 
The  miser,  hoarding  gold,  is  the  fool  of  this 
world,  because  for  a  thing  useless  in  itself  he 
144 


its  Use 


OF   BUSINESS 

gives  up  everything  worth  having.  Barrels 
are  useful  to  measure  and  transport  apples, 
and  making  or  trading  barrels  is  a  useful 
business.  So  with  money.  Both  are  useful 
only  for  use.  When  the  farmer  must  gather 
his  apples  and  "  move  the  crops,"  if  barrels 
or  the  money  to  buy  them  be  *' short,"  he 
loses  his  crop.  If  he  has  not  saved  seed,  or 
ploughs,  or  barrels,  he  must  get  them,  and 
this  he  does  by  borrowing  money,  at  the 
South  *'  on  the  crop,"  at  the  West  by  pledge 
of  his  land  or  on  his  "  credit,"  which  means 
the  belief,  faith,  confidence  in  him  that  he 
will  pay. 

A  bank  is  a  money-shop  which  lends  the 
borrower  money  on  his  promise-to-pay,  at  Banks  as 
a  cost,  in  "discount"  or  "interest,"  lower  ^ops^' 
than  the  increased  price  he  would  have 
to  pay  the  seedsman  or  plough-maker  or 
cooper  for  goods  "on  long  time."  The 
bank  has  this  money  on  "deposit"  from 
those  who  have  saved  wealth,  just  as  the 
seedsman  has  collected  seed  from  those  who 
have  saved  seeds,  and  the  bank  makes  a 
profit  as  the  seedsman  does  by  getting  a 
price  somewhat  higher  than  it  has  to  pay. 
This  price  must  cover  the  risk  of  loss  by 
bad  debts.  If  there  is  plenty  of  seed  in  store, 
145 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

and  competing  seed-shops,  but  not  too  many 
for  the  trade,  and  the  farmer  is  "  sure  pay," 
he  gets  his  seed  cheap.  So  also  with  "  easy 
money,"  a  safe  banking  system  with  local 
banks,  and  "  good  credit,"  the  price  of  money, 
the  rate  of  interest  or  discount,  is  low. 

The  farmer  may  sell  his  crop  of  apples  to  a 
The  Round  picker,  and  he  to  the  store-keeper,  and  he  to 
of  Credit  ^^iq  commission  agent,  and  he  to  the  wholesale 
fruit-dealer,  yet  the  apples  are  not  transferred 
nor  money  passed  till  they  are  picked,  bar- 
reled, and  shipped  to  the  city.  So  in  a  like 
round,  the  bank  sells  the  use  of  money  to  the 
farmer,  taking  his  bond  or  promise-note,  puts 
the  amount  to  his  account,  permits  him  to 
draw  checks,  and  receives  at  last  what  has  been 
paid  him  for  the  apples,  without  handling 
money  at  all  except  when  the  holder  of  a  check 
asks  gold  or  currency  for  it.  But  the  apples 
or  money  must  be  there,  when  the  receipt 
promising  to  deliver  the  apples  or  the  "  bill  '* 
promising  to  pay  gold  is  presented.  This  is 
the  "  course  of  trade  "  when  the  West  has  to 
"move  the  crops,"  and  borrows  money  from 
the  East  to  do  it ;  happily  the  West  also  has 
now  money  to  lend  to  the  East  when  it  is 
needed  for  Eastern  mills.  This  is  the  round 
which  corresponds  in  economics  to  the 
146 


OF   BUSINESS 

wonder-workings  of  water  throughout  nature, 
as  from  the  ocean  the  sun  draws  vapor  to 
make  the  clouds,  and  these  shed  rain  upon 
the  earth  to  water  bounteous  crops,  and  the 
forests  gather  drops  for  the  brooks,  and 
these  make  the  streams  which  are  dammed 
to  turn  the  wheels  of  mills  and  slake  the 
thirst  of  cities,  and  at  last  the  rivers  return 
to  the  sea  in  the  completed  cycle.  General 
confidence,  safe  banking  with  banks  through- 
out the  country  wherever  needed,  sound  cur- 
rency, laws  just  to  loanerand  borrower  alike, 
good  credit,  —  these  lower  the  rate  of  inter- 
est and  help  every  man  to  earn  a  surer  and 
easier  living. 

Here  also  moral  qualities  are  at  the  foun- 
dation, and  business  proves   to  be  built  on 
right  and  faith.     Not  money,  but  the  love  of  Business 
money,  and  the  lust  of  its  power,  is  the  root  ^gh°and 
of  all  evil.    The  man  who  uses  money  to  get  Faith 
power  to  get  more,  with  no  end  but  money- 
getting  in  view,  blinds  the  eyes  of  his  soul. 
For  in  the  personal  life,  neither  money,  nor 
wealth,  nor  power,  is  a  good-in-itself   or   in 
itself  a  pleasure. 

"  Business  is  business,"  it  is  said,  and  there 
is  no  place  in  it  for  sentiment  or  morals  or 
147 


Human 

Qualities 

count 


Panics  and 
hard  Times 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

Christianity.  This  is  the  half-truth  which  is 
more  misleading  than  the  lie.  Money  in- 
deed seeks  the  cheaper  market,  as  water  runs 
down  hill ;  thus  equilibrium,  the  level  of 
prices,  is  preserved.  But  in  dealing  not 
with  things,  but  with  human  beings  and  the 
makers  of  things,  human  qualities  count,  and 
"  morals "  in  the  long  run  win.  There  is 
indeed  no  "  sentiment "  in  the  fact  that  a 
great  railway  corporation  cannot  afford  to 
employ  a  drunkard,  yet  that  rule  has  been 
one  of  the  most  efficient  motives  toward 
the  virtue  of  temperance.  Morality  is  knit 
into  the  very  fibre  of  business.  The  cheat 
prospers  for  the  time,  but  not  for  the  life- 
time. A  lying  salesman  can't  sell  twice  on 
the  same  road.  England  has  lost  much  of  the 
China  trade  in  cottons  because  Manchester 
stuffs  were  so  loaded  with  clay  that  '*  Amer- 
icans," by  contrast,  became  the  name  for 
honest  goods.  And  "panics,"  *'hard  times," 
and  all  the  ills  they  bring,  come  not  so 
much  because  Nature  denies  her  bounty  or 
work  and  trade  cease,  as  because  fear  takes 
the  place  of  hope,  public  confidence  is  fol- 
lowed by  distrust,  wealth  is  withdrawn  from 
use  and  hoarded  unused  in  terror  of  loss. 
This  is  often  but  the  reaction  from  "  booms  " 
148 


OF   BUSINESS 

and  speculation  into  which  a  community 
has  been  led,  through  its  own  spirit  of  reck- 
less greed,  by  **  confidence  men  "  who  call 
themselves  "promoters."  Steadfastness  in 
well-doing  and  resistance  of  the  temptation 
of  gaining  without  work,  of  getting  with- 
out giving  value,  are  the  moral  qualities 
which  safeguard  business  and  the  common- 
wealth. 

For  most  men,  and  for  many  women,  the 
greater  part  of  their  working  hours  is  spent  ideal  Re- 
in the  every-day  relations  of  business  life.  Jfractical^ 
These  relations,  not  less  vital  because  they  Life 
concern  the  problem  of  earning  a  living, 
are  rarely  cultivated  in  full  view  of  the  great 
opportunity  they  present.  Not  only  should 
a  merchant  with  his  clerks,  a  manufacturer 
with  his  workmen,  provide  fair  hours  and 
good  light  and  fresh  air  and  due  warmth 
and  reasonable  rest  and  facilities  of  work; 
vastly  beyond  these  are  the  courtesy  and 
helpfulness  and  sympathy  and  justice  and  in- 
spiration which  those  who  have  may  give 
to  those  who  want,  securing  in  turn  the 
loyalty  and  devotion  of  service  which  are 
their  response.  Coordination  rather  than 
subordination  should  be  the  spirit  of  business 
organizations.  The  golden  rule  may  make 
149 


THE   ARTS  OF   LIFE 

golden  days  under  leaden  skies,  if  the  day's 
work  of  wearying  routine  have  over  it  the 
light  of  human  sympathy  and  helpfulness 
and  cheer.  And  in  turn  "  it  pays  "  to  have 
a  cheerful  mill,  or  store,  or  office,  for  de- 
crease of  friction  means  increase  of  work ; 
and  the  man  cheerfully  ready  to  dare  and  do 
may  be  worth  twice  the  salary  of  another 
whose  first  thought  is  always  that  "  it  can't 
be  done."  Throughout  all  the  relations  and 
circumstances  of  the  business  life,  morals 
tell. 

Last  of  all,  the  art  of  business,  as  an  art 
The  Fnii-  of  life,  has  its  fruition  in  the  development  of 
Business  character,  through  the  discipline  of  affairs 
and  in  that  earned  leisure  wherein  re-creation 
has  its  full  meaning.  The  strenuous  life  of 
the  world  finds  its  complement,  its  fulfillment, 
in  the  serene  life  of  the  spirit.  Business  is 
to  most  men  the  great  school  for  the  forma- 
tion of  character  —  that  which  abides  in  and 
is  the  man.  Thus  business  should  provide, 
no  less  by  the  discipline  of  life  than  by  the 
earning  of  a  living,  the  foundation  of  personal 
development  and  social  life.  It  is  the  trunk 
of  the  tree  from  which  should  blossom  forth 
the  flower  and  the  fruit  of  life. 


150 


GF   POLITICS 


OF  POLITICS 

'OLITICS  is  the  science  and  art 
of  government,  or,  in  a  closer  Government 
sense,  the  relation  of  the  citizen 
with  government.  Government 
is  the  organ  of  the  social  organ- 
ization, the  embodiment  of  the  social  order, 
the  largest  generalization  of  the  faculties  and 
activities  of  humankind,  in  an  association  of 
all  for  the  good  of  each  —  the  community,  the 
common-weal,  the  common-wealth,  the  state, 
the  nation.  It  is  a  natural  evolution,  and 
among  some  animals,  as  the  beaver,  the  ant, 
the  bee,  a  high  degree  of  communal  life,  in- 
volving a  quasi  government,  is  developed  in 
obedience  to  instinct.  As  in  economics  and 
society  man  fulfills  his  private  relations  with 
his  fellows,  so  in  politics  he  fulfills  his  public 
relations.  The  art  of  politics  concerns  every 
man  and  woman  in  the  community,  whether 
in  sharing  the  active  duties  of  the  citizen,  or 
in  helping  to  make  public  opinion,  or  in  ful- 
filling that  highest  and  most  honorable  of 
callings,  under  a  true  politics,  the  service  of 
the  state  as  a  representative  of  the  people. 
For  the  greatest  nation,  like  all  organiza- 
tions, is  made  up  of  atoms  —  the  individual 
153 


THE   ARTS    OF  LIFE 

Public  Opin-  citizens.  The  aggregate,  or  average,  of  their 
tromng*^°""  opinions  makes  public  opinion,  which,  by- 
Factor  more  or  less  direct  action,  is  in  modern 
states  finally  the  controlling  factor.  In  pol- 
itics as  in  gravitation,  in  the  destiny  of  a 
nation  as  in  the  shaping  of  the  universe, 
each  atom  counts.  In  the  court  of  the  pub- 
lic each  man  is  a  juror.  Even  the  citizen 
who,  in  a  representative  government,  fails  to 
go  to  the  polls,  exercises  responsibility  and 
influence  negatively,  and  his  abstinence  may 
give  the  "casting  vote"  its  power.  No  mod- 
ern man  can  evade  his  responsibility  for  the 
state  of  which  he  is  a  part.  Each  man  is  to 
have  his  fair  chance.  But  he,  and  all  others, 
get  this  chance  only  as  he,  and  all  others,  do 
their  individual  duty. 

It  is  of  first  importance  in  politics  as  an 
The  Citi-       art  of  life  that  the  citizen  should  truly  know 
and  Dutf ^*    and  rightly  face  his  right  and  duty,  and  do 
his  part  in  his  government,  and  appreciate 
its  relations  with  him.     For  he  shapes  it  and 
it  shapes  him.     It  is  delusive  to  assume  that 
government  arose  from  "  social  compact  "  in 
a  primitive  and  lofty  age,  and  has  degener- 
ated under  the  usurpations  of  despotic  mon- 
archs,  and  takes  care  of  itself  and  is  bound 
to  come  out  right  when  again  it  becomes  a 
154 


OF   POLITICS 

"free  democracy."  A  government,  like  a 
man,  is  a  growth,  made  by  many  influences 
—  in  the  large  view  a  growth  upward,  but 
ever  needing  alert  watchfulness  to  keep  it  to 
the  highest  standard  of  its  actual  possibili- 
ties. A  monarchy  may  be  among  the  most 
liberal,  a  democracy  among  the  most  de- 
spotic, of  governments.  In  government,  as 
in  all  else,  the  letter  may  be  one,  and  the 
spirit  other. 

To  know  a  government,  we  must  ask  indeed 
not  only  what  is  the  form  in  which  it  has  Form  and 
historically  developed,  but  more  vitally  where  frnment^°^ 
is  the  sovereignty  and  who  are  masters,  what 
is  the  public  service  and  how  it  is  controlled, 
what  are  the  functions  and  ends  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  form  may  be  of  monarchy, 
aristocracy,  democracy ;  simple  or  highly  dif- 
ferentiated into  executive,  legislative,  judicial 
relations  ;  with  or  without  councils,  one,  two, 
or  more,  and  departmental  divisions  ;  defined 
by  a  written  constitution,  or  only  by  custom, 
tradition,  the  national  spirit.  The  sovereignty  . 
may  be  theoretically  with  a  king  or  with  the 
people ;  and  the  mastery  practically  with  a 
usurper  or  the  king's  advisers  or  a  parliament, 
or  with  a  party,  a  cabal,  a  plutocracy,  a  "  ring," 
or  a  "  boss."  The  public  service  may  be  of 
155 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

capable,  experienced,  trained,  skilled  states- 
men and  employees,  or  of  "  politicians  "  who 
have  made  that  word  of  honor  into  a  by-word, 
and  of  "  heelers  ""  out  of  a  job."  The  ser- 
vants may  be  deliberately,  wisely,  discrimina- 
tively  selected  by  the  masters,  and  promptly 
and  easily  controlled ;  or  the  house  politic 
may  be  given  over  to  the  servants,  ruling  the 
masters  from  below.  The  purpose  and  func- 
tion of  a  government  may  be  to  protect  each 
man  in  his  rights  and  liberties  and  do  no 
more,  or  to  conduct  and  control  the  business 
as  well  as  political  affairs  of  the  social  or- 
ganization. To  know  what  our  government 
really  is,  all  these  questions  must  be  faced 
and  answered.  The  large  workings  of  large 
laws  at  once  reveal  themselves,  but  in  and 
with  and  of  these  is  the  influence  of  the  indi- 
vidual —  the  atom  which,  responsive  to  grav- 
itation, makes  up  the  motion  of  the  mass. 

The  simplest  government  of  early  times 
Kinship  and  was  that  of  the  family  or  home  by  the  parent, 
hoo^d  ^°^'  ^^^  natural  head.  This  is  the  primal  molecule 
of  society,  uniting  the  personal  atoms.  As 
in  chemistry,  molecules  of  like  kind  form  a 
simple  substance,  and  molecules  of  unlike 
kinds,  placed  in  chemical  association,  become 

156 


OF   POLITICS 

organized  into  a  complex  substance  from 
which  the  higher  organization  proceeds,  so 
from  the  social  molecule  two  types  of  gov- 
ernment were  evolved,  the  first  based  on  kin- 
ship, the  family,  the  rule  of  race,  tribal  gov- 
ernment ;  the  later  based  on  neighborhood, 
the  home,  the  rule  of  place,  local  government. 
The  early  pastoral  peoples,  living  in  tents, 
wandering  with  their  herds,  fighting  if  need 
be  for  fresh  feeding-grounds,  mobilized,  war- 
like, aggressive,  led  by  the  patriarch  or  by 
the  head-man  who  succeeded,  developed  a 
centralized,  military  government,  in  its  na- 
ture hereditary  or  successive,  aristocratic,  de- 
spotic. As  men  became  more  and  more  fixed 
in  one  place,  tilling  their  own  fields,  dwelling 
in  their  own  homes,  settled,  peaceful,  defen- 
sive, battling  only  with  nature  or  for  their 
own  rights,  there  was  developed  the  localized, 
civil  government,  in  its  nature  selective  or 
elective,  democratic,  free.  Our  English 
speech  reflects  these  types  indeed  in  two  Two  Types 
sets  of  words  :  the  one  relating  to  the  family  ^"  Language 
or  kin  —  as  king  or  kinman,  kingdom  ;  cap- 
tain, chieftain,  meaning  head  {caput)  man  ; 
soverain,  meaning  the  superior  {superanum) 
or  supreme  man ;  emperor,  meaning  com- 
mander {imperator)y  empire ;  realm,  regal, 
157 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

royal,  from  reXy  the  ruler  ;  nation,  those  born 
{natus)  of  one  nativity ;  the  other  relating  to 
the  home  or  land  —  as  town,  meaning  a 
fenced  place  or  inclosure  {toun) ;  burgh  (from 
burrow),  a  place  of  shelter,  burgher ;  city,  citi- 
zen, civil,  civic,  from  a  form  {civis)  cognate 
with  quieSy  meaning  a  quiet  or  rest  place,  the 
hive  or  home ;  domicile,  a  little  or  private  home 
(domus),  domain,  dominion  ;  state  {status)  or 
estate.  The  struggles  of  these  two  types 
have  produced  many  of  the  great  conflicts 
of  history,  and  in  most  cases  the  resultant 
between  the  two  forces,  under  the  various 
conditions  of  each  nation,  gives  that  nation 
to-day  its  actual  and  distinctive  form  of  gov- 
ernment. So,  in  speech,  the  two  sets  of 
words  have  mingled,  although  in  our  Amer- 
ican Union  the  word  "  state,"  retained  for 
the  territorial  units,  and  the  word  "  nation," 
used  for  the  centralized  power,  have  much 
of  their  distinctive  significance. 

The  dominance  of  the  race-idea  survived 
Race-  and    in  the  characteristics  of  the  Arab  tribes,  the 
ernmentT"    Jewish  nation,  the  Latin  races,  the  Scotch 
and  Irish  clans ;  of  the  place-idea  in  Greece, 
Russia,  Germany,  Holland,  England,  Amer- 
ica.   The  children  of  Israel,  a  nomad  people, 
losing  identity  and  patriarchal  government 
158 


OF   POLITICS 

when  settled  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  were 
roused  from  the  sleep  of  serfdom  by  their 
greatest  of  leaders  and  trained  anew,  under 
their  theocratic  government,  by  their  wander- 
ings in  the  wilderness  and  by  the  ruthless 
command  to  destroy  the  heathen  of  their  new 
land,  to  become  the  great  representative  of 
the  race-idea,  homeless,  yet  a  nation  in  the 
midst  of  nations.  In  modern  history,  espe- 
cially, types  cross  and  forms  mingle  :  France, 
racial  and  military,  has  the  semblance  of  a 
republic ;  Germany,  a  birthplace  of  freedom, 
and  Russia,  land  of  the  democratic  mir  and 
of  local  self-government,  are  to-day  ruled  by 
despotic  monarchs  in  conflict  with  the  peo- 
ple ;  England,  a  democracy,  has  the  form  of 
monarchy  and  empire ;  America,  a  democratic 
republic,  restricts  immigration  and  denies  its 
presidency  to  those  of  alien  birth.  But,  in  the 
large  historic  view,  the  nations  first-named 
have  been  the  "  subjects  "  or  clannish  devo- 
tees of  a  tribal  or  personal  government,  con-  Conquerors 
querors  for  the  sake  of  conquest,  marauders  n?s^s^°^°" 
for  the  value  of  the  prey  :  the  countries  last- 
named  have  been  the  homes  of  free  men, 
revolting  against  tyrants  in  defense  of  their 
homes  and  rights,  organized  in  village  com- 
munity, town,  city,  state,  for  local  home-rule 
159 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

by  the  people,  colonists  rather  than  conquer- 
ors, establishing  self-governing  colonies  and 
waging  war  and  annexing  territory  chiefly 
to  maintain  or  safeguard  them.  Splendid 
were  the  flashing  triumphs  of  the  Caesars, 
the  Moors,  Napoleon,  Spain,  but  their  glories 
faded  before  the  staying  power  of  the  home- 
land peoples,  amalgamating  and  assimilating 
many  races  in  a  fatherland  of  adoption  and 
planting  colonies  of  peaceful  dominion.  Rus- 
sia when  emancipated,  Germany  freed,  Eng- 
land bulwarked  by  self-governing  colonies, 
and  in  danger  only  when  strength  overrides 
justice  and  strangles  development,  America 
if  she  can  preserve  the  spirit  of  free  demo- 
cracy, rejecting  alike  plutocracy  and  social- 
ism, —  these  mark  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
in  government  and  enter  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury as  leaders  of  the  world. 

As  the  Greek  cities,  at  first  the  residence 
The  Greek  of  the  head  of  a  family  or  a  king  of  tribes, 
grew  to  be  the  home  of  a  settled  citizenry, 
the  city  (Greek  po/is,  whence  our  word  "  poli- 
tics "),  though  still  made  up  by  £-ens  or  fam- 
ilies, became  itself  the  state.  Their  history 
caused  Aristotle  to  consider  government  a 
cycle  of  changes,  first  monarchy,  the  rule  of 
"  one,"  degenerating  into  tyranny  ;  this  over- 
i6o 


Cities 


OF   POLITICS 

come  by  aristocracy,  the  rule  of  a  "best" 
class,  in  turn  degenerating  into  oligarchy,  its 
abuse  by  the  "  few ; "  that  overborne  by  de- 
mocracy, the  rule  of  the  people,  in  its  turn 
degenerating  into  anarchy,  the  "  no-rule  "  of 
the  mob,  and  suppressed  by  the  strong  hand 
of  a  new  monarch.  But  the  Athenian  demo- 
cracy was  never  the  rule  of  a  majority  of  all, 
but  a  government  of  classes,  into  which  the 
suburbans,  "men  of  the  mountains"  a  few 
miles  north,  and  "  men  of  the  shore  "  a  few 
miles  south  from  Athens,  forced  their  way 
only  after  long  struggle,  and  which  always 
excluded  not  only  slaves  but  many  free 
dwellers  within  the  walls.  And  ancient  gov-  Ancient 
ernment  in  all  its  forms  was  a  collectivism,  Jcoiig^v-* 
in  which  the  citizen  was  the  servant  of  the  ism 
state  rather  than  the  state  the  agent  of  the 
citizen.  Within  the  city,  and  among  the 
cities  leagued  together,  there  was  delegated 
government,  in  which  various  functions  were 
delegated  to  many  officials  and  councils  ;  but 
representative  government,  by  which  distant 
peoples  could  take  part  in  action  at  a  polit- 
ical centre,  was  unknown  to  the  ancients, 
and  the  great  city  of  Rome,  developing  from 
the  type  of  the  Greek  city  into  the  dominion 
of  an  empire,  fell  before  the  demoralization 
i6i 


tonic  Tribes 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

of  its  democracy  and  the  weight  of  its  vast 
possessions,  into  imperialism,  decadence,  and 
death. 

When  the  Teutonic  tribes,  developed  in 
The  Teu-  the  democratic  system  of  their  village  com- 
munities, but  still  retaining  their  tribal  mo- 
bility and  their  allegiance  to  their  war-leaders, 
overwhelmed  Rome,  the  grants  of  estates 
made  by  kings  to  their  barons,  conditioned 
on  military  service,  developed  the  feudal  sys- 
tem which  made  possible  the  transition  to 
the  modern  state.  A  hierarchy  of  nobles, 
among  whom  the  king  was  chief  baron,  began 
to  wrest  from  the  sovereign  charters  or  con- 
cessions limiting  or  defining  personal  sover- 
eignty and  recognizing  rights  of  self-govern- 
ment and  home-rule.  Beginning  with  Magna 
Charta,  truly  the  great  writing  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  liberty,  this  process  of  limitation  of 
the  central  power,  of  separation  of  functions, 
of  analysis,  answering  to  a  centrifugal  force 
in  government,  has  evolved  in  England  a 
democracy  preserving  the  semblance  of  a 
monarchy,  limited  by  a  constitution  unwritten 
save  in  "  the  common  law."  Thus  the  polit- 
ical rights  of  man  have  been  affirmed,  and 
the  freeman  has  succeeded,  in  fact  if  not  in 
name,  the  subject. 

162 


OF   POLITICS 

In  New  England  the  process  was  the  re- 
verse. The  settlers,  freemen  presently  in  The  New 
name  as  in  fact,  banded  settlements  into  pj^o^cess^ 
colonies,  leagued  these  into  federations, 
united  states  into  a  nation,  surrendering  at 
each  step  to  the  central  government  a  dele- 
gated authority  over  its  local  constituents. 
This  process  of  synthesis,  obeying  a  centrip- 
etal force  in  government,  has  developed  in 
our  democratic  republic  a  trend  toward  an 
autocracy,  unrecognized  by  law  and  irrespon- 
sible, which  makes  possible  party  domination, 
the  "  boss  "  and  the  plutocrat  in  politics.  As 
England,  a  monarchy,  has  become  more 
democratic,  America,  a  republic,  has  become 
more  despotic.  Public  opinion,  in  England, 
responsive  to  a  "question"  asked  in  the 
Commons,  controls  Parliament  and  the 
Crown  ;  but  a  party  boss,  in  America,  com- 
pels a  legislature  or  an  executive  to  defy  the 
popular  will,  trusting  to  forgetfulness  at  the 
next  election,  as  no  prime  minister  could  do. 
Russia,  developed  like  America  by  aggrega- 
tion from  its  local  communities,  the  demo- 
cratic mivy  has  become  centralized  by  like 
process  into  the  most  despotic  autocracy  of 
the  age,  and  the  centrifugal  force  re-asserts 

163 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

itself  in  seething  though  suppressed  revolu- 
tion. 


The  simplest  form  of  direct   democratic 
Direct  de-      government,  "  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
Government  ^^^  ^^^  people,"  is  the  New  England  town 
meeting.     In  the  village  community,  as  in 
Athens  of  old,  the  voters  themselves  meet, 
debate,  vote  their  decisions,  and  select  men 
to  execute  them.     That  is  possible  and  ade- 
quate only  for  neighborhood  affairs,  known 
directly  to  all.     This  is  not  representative, 
but  direct  government ;  free  and  full  discus- 
sion is  invited ;  the  minority  is  expected  to 
make  itself  usefully  heard.     But  the  town 
meeting  cannot  meet  continuously  or  often ; 
it  cannot  decide  on  matters  outside  its  neigh- 
borhood, in   which    other    people    are    con- 
cerned.    The  select-men  come  to  represent 
it   between   whiles ;    it   presently  elects  re- 
presentatives to  join  with  those  from  other 
places  in  deciding  matters  common  to  all. 
Thus   representative   government   begins. 
Representa-  When  the  representatives  meet,  it  is,  at  the 
ment'°^^^""  ^^^^  Stage,  as  a  deputized  town  meeting.    But 
the  deputies  have  not  the  common  interest 
nor  the  specific  knowledge  from  which   to 
act.      Committees   are   appointed    to   make 
164 


OF   POLITICS 

specific  inquiries  and  recommend  action. 
As  questions  become  more  numerous  and 
more  complex,  the  representative  is  less  able 
to  decide  for  himself  :  "  government  by  com- 
mittee "  begins.  Meanwhile,  large  questions 
develop,  on  which  men  divide  into  parties ; 
and  "government  by  party"  crosses  govern- 
ment by  committee.  As  a  legislature,  or 
"  general  court,"  or  congress,  or  parliament 
makes  decisions  for  the  people  in  the  form 
of  "laws,"  it  is  necessary  to  have  adminis- 
trative officers  to  execute  these  decisions, 
and  as  questions  arise  of  interpretation  or 
application  of  a  constitution,  written  or  tra- 
ditional, or  of  a  law,  it  is  necessary  to  have 
judicial  officers  to  determine  them.  Thus 
the  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  func- 
tions of  government  are  differentiated. 

As  the  scope  of  government  broadens, 
geographically  and  otherwise,  beyond  the  Territorial 
village  and  township  functions,  there  results  functions 
finally  another  differentiation  based  on  terri- 
torial grounds.  The  villages  or  towns,  or  in 
the  South  the  landed  estates  which  formed 
its  unit  of  settlement,  are  aggregated  into  the 
county  or  shire,  originally  a  semi-tribal  kind 
of  government  which  we  have  inherited  from 
England.  The  State,  originating  from  the 
165 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

early  colonies  or  amalgamations  of  them,  or 
developed  from  "  territories  "  as  these  were 
settled,  represents  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people  and  is  supreme,  except  as  the  united 
States  have  delegated  their  larger  powers, 
especially  in  foreign  relations,  to  our  federal 
nation.  Thus  have  come  into  being  the 
complexities  and  cross-lines  of  our  govern- 
ments, unparalleled  elsewhere,  amidst  which 
the  individual  citizen  is  too  often  confused 
in  his  duties  or  misled  by  selfish  or  errant 
leaders.  This  complexity  is  increased  by 
the  development  of  the  modern  city. 

As  the  modern  city  has  evolved  from  the 
Municipal  village,  the  town,  its  complex  conditions  pre- 
Government  ^^^^  intricate  questions  of  business  adminis- 
tration which  neither  the  people  at  large  nor 
legislative  bodies  can  effectively  handle.  A 
municipality  does  not  need  to  pass  laws,  but 
only  to  make  and  enforce  regulations,  in 
their  nature  specific  and  technical.  Alder- 
men, councils,  municipal  legislatures  and 
assemblies,  with  general  functions,  have  in 
practice  proved  useless  bodies  in  cities, 
prone  to  degenerate  into  corruption.  Suc- 
cessful municipal  government  follows  the 
type  of  corporate  industrial  organizations, 
organized  to  do  business.  The  citizens  are 
i66 


OF   POLITICS 

the  shareholders,  whose  function  is  to  decide 
large  lines  of  policy  and  to  obtain  capable 
executive  ability  to  execute  their  will.  In  a 
great  city,  questions  of  street  construction 
and  maintenance,  sewers,  water  supply,  fire 
prevention,  lighting,  police,  sanitation,  build- 
ings, bridges,  and  the  like,  are  engineering 
and  administrative  problems  requiring  the 
highest  technical  experience  and  skill,  ut- 
terly different  from  questions  of  domestic 
policy  or  foreign  relations  which  are  the 
concern  of  State  and  nation,  and  altogether 
apart  from  state  or  national  party  divisions. 
The  proper  method  of  municipal  government  The  proper 
is  one  which  makes  it  easy  for  the  people  to  ^®*^°^ 
decide,  by  popular  vote,  what  they  will  do 
and  pay  for  collectively  and  what  they  will 
leave  to  private  enterprise,  and  then  to  pro- 
vide for  capable  business  skill  to  adminis- 
ter the  collective  enterprises.  In  England 
municipal  development  is  more  or  less  under 
the  centralized  and  continuous  control  of  a 
national  **  Board  of  Trade  ;  "  in  America  the 
"  charters  "  of  cities  presume  "  home-rule," 
but  party  interference  from  state  legislatures 
is  rather  the  rule  than  the  exception. 

Thus  in  the  modern  evolution  of  govern- 
ment there  has  come  to  be  a  gradation  of 
167 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

Gradation  of  governments  within  one  country,  from  the 
merits'^"  national  or  general  government  representing 
the  citizens  in  relation  to  foreign  powers  and 
in  general  domestic  interests,  to  the  local  or 
municipal  government  which  administers  as 
to  the  necessities  or  conveniences  of  neigh- 
borhood life,  with  intermediate  governments 
of  which  in  America  the  most  notable  is  the 
State,  sovereign  within  its  territory,  but  dele- 
gating external  and  interstate  authority  to 
the  federation  of  the  United  States.  It  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  good  government  that 
each  grade  of  government  should  have  its 
functions  and  purposes  clearly  differentiated 
from  other  grades,  and  that  the  intermediate 
grades  should  not  be  multifarious  and  con- 
fusing, to  the  perplexity  of  the  voter-citizen. 
The  criss-cross  of  administrative  districts  in 
England,  and  the  multiplicity  of  elective 
officers  in  America,  are  serious  obstacles  to 
intelligent  participation  in  and  control  of 
government  by  the  individual. 


Nation  ? 


The  question  "  What  is  a  nation  ? "  is  in 

Whatis^a      itself  not  of  simple  answer,  for  it  requires 

recognition  of  the  complex  and  subtle  forces 

which  make  each  nation  what  it  is.     Rivers 

were  of  old  the  boundary  lines  of  countries, 

1 68 


OF   POLITICS 

but  with  steam  the  waterways  are  highways, 
uniting  and  not  dividing,  and  the  physical 
seat  of  a  nation  is  rather  the  valleys  of  great 
river  systems,  from  source  to  sea,  bounded 
by  the  mountain  barriers.  Thus  Germany 
must  have  from  France  its  other  side  of  the 
Rhine,  to  complete  the  German  fatherland. 
But  neither  place  nor  race  alone  to-day 
makes  or  determines  a  nation.  A  modern 
authority  defines  the  state  as  the  politically 
organized  people  of  a  particular  land.  Race- 
tendency,  the  heat  line,  climate,  the  physical 
environment,  the  standard  of  comfort,  the 
education  of  the  people,  literature  and  art, 
the  character  and  influence  of  leaders,  belief, 
customs,  —  all  these  make  the  life  and  direct 
the  growth  of  a  nation,  in  short  make  the 
nation.  Conquest  or  federation  may  indeed 
bring  within  the  dominion  of  a  nation  terri- 
tory and  peoples  not  truly  a  part  of  it,  as 
Pd'land  captured  by  Russia  and  Hungary 
linked  with  Austria,  or  partition  may  sepa- 
rate natural  compatriots,  as  Belgium  from 
France.  The  ideal  nation  is  of  one  people 
speaking  the  same  tongue,  having  the  same 
customs,  dwelling  in  one  fatherland  as  in 
Germany,  or  assimilated  into  an  adopted 
country  as  in  America.  The  kind  and 
169 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

amount,  the  quality  and  quantity,  of  govern- 
ment proper  to  each  community  develop 
from  these  conditions,  and  their  careful  study 
is  the  first  requisite  of  the  art  of  politics,  of 
politics  as  an  art  of  life,  oi  practical  politics 
in  fact. 

Under  all  forms  of  government,  "sover- 
Sovereignty  eignty,"  or  supremacy,  is  the  defining  test  of 
state  or  nation.  For  the  doctrine  of  sover- 
eignty, though  originating  from  race  and 
personal  government,  has  been  applied  in 
fullest  extent  to  place  and  democratic  govern- 
ment—  in  fact  marks  the  culmination  and 
union  of  both.  It  is  founded  on  the  theory 
of  absolute  rule  by  an  infallible  ruler  who 
has  supreme  right  over  the  lives  and  pro- 
perty of  his  "subjects."  "The  king  can  do 
no  wrong  "  and  therefore  cannot  be  sued ;  he 
owns  all  the  land  and  can  therefore  exercise 
right  of  "  eminent  domain  ;  "  he  can  require 
his  people  to  defend  him,  even  with  their 
lives  and  all  their  fortune,  and  can  therefore 
draft  them  into  military  service  and  levy  war 
taxes  to  the  full  of  their  wealth.  No  person 
in  civilized  countries  now  believes  in  this 
"divine  right"  of  kings  —  except  the  Em- 
peror of  Germany,  and  his  people  do  not 
agree  with  him.  Yet  it  remains  the  theo- 
170 


OF   POLITICS 

retic  basis  of  statehood,  tempered  in  England 
by  traditional  and  evolutionary  limitations, 
and  transferred  with  independence  to  our  own 
States.  With  us  there  is  no  personal  govern- 
ment and  "  each  man  is  a  sovereign."  But 
"the  people,"  that  is,  all  the  people  together,  The  People 
are  sovereign,  and  have  all  rights  over  each  ^°'^®^®^i^ 
person,  and  they  exercise  this  sovereignty 
through  the  State,  except  so  far  as  the  States 
have  unitedly  delegated  or  transferred  this 
sovereignty  to  the  federated  nation.  The 
State,  and  not  the  United  States,  is  sover- 
eign over,  that  is,  finally  owns,  all  the  land 
inside  its  boundaries,  and  within  the  provi- 
sions of  the  constitution  requiring  adequate 
compensation  can  take  private  land  for  public 
use,  either  for  itself  or  for  such  ^uast-pnhlic 
use  as  by  a  railroad  corporation.  Neither  a 
State  nor  the  United  States  can  be  sued  by 
a  citizen,  who  must  have  recourse  to  the  de- 
vice of  suing  a  government  official  through 
whom  any  wrong  has  been  done.  Citizens 
may  be  required,  by  draft,  to  expose  their 
lives  for  the  common  defense,  though  not  for 
external  war,  by  either  state  or  federal  gov- 
ernment ;  and  each,  within  its  constitutionally 
prescribed  field,  may  levy  taxes  to  any  neces- 
sary extent.  This  nation  has  indeed  carried 
171 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

The  Ex-  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  to  its  extreme 
Sovereignty  extent,  by  assuming  that  sovereignty  can  be 
acquired  by  purchase,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Philippines,  and  considering  those  who  do 
not  agree  to  the  transfer  as  "rebels  "  against 
constituted  authority.  In  our  domestic  af- 
fairs, we  are  protected  against  abuse  of  this 
sovereign  power  by  the  specific  limitations 
of  a  written  constitution,  determining  the 
limitations  of  the  power  both  of  State  and 
nation,  as  by  the  right  of  habeas  corpus,  the 
provision  that  property  shall  not  be  taken 
save  by  due  process  of  law,  and  the  limita- 
tion of  militia  duty  to  home  defense.  In  a 
federated  or  federal  government,  sovereignty 
is  thus  partitioned  by  agreement,  and  the 
central  power  becomes  usually  the  seat  of 
sovereignty  in  its  foreign  relations  with  other 
sovereignties. 

As  sovereignty  can  be  enforced  to  the  ex- 
Not  Force  treme,  it  is  commonly  assumed  that  both 
Order  the  ^^^  ^^^  government  rest  in  the  last  analysis 
Basis  upon  force,  or  immediately  upon  fear  of  force. 

But  this  is  like  saying  that  health  rests  upon 
fear  of  disease.  It  is  acquiescence  in  the 
social  order  which  makes  government  possi- 
ble and  is  its  foundation.  All  communities 
are  more  or  less  self-governing :  most  peo- 
172 


OF   POLITICS 

pie  behave  themselves,  mind  their  own  busi- 
ness, respect  the  rights  of  their  fellows,  and 
do  not  require  the  attention  of  the  police. 
Otherwise,  the  task  of  government  would  be 
well-nigh  impossible,  and  anarchy  would  be 
in  sight.  Even  barbarous  tribes  find  the 
self-restraint  which  is  the  first  condition  of 
their  progress,  in  the  rudimentary  but  all- 
powerful  government  of  customary  law, 
habit,  and  superstition ;  while  the  peoples  of 
higher  moral  development  and  organization 
find  statutory  law  and  punishment  necessary 
chiefly  for  that  minority  constituting  the 
criminal  class.  The  great  body  of  men  do 
not  transgress  laws,  if  they  are  laws  of  nature 
and  of  "  common  sense,"  but  respect  them 
unwritten.  Thus  government  becomes  more 
and  more  a  formalized  adjustment  of  complex 
relations  growing  up  with  the  complexities 
of  civilization.  These  adjustments  can  be 
made  only  by  general  agreement,  and  thus 
in  the  progress  of  the  world  the  best  and 
most  stable  form  of  government  has  come  to 
be  that  which  develops  self-government  in  Self-gov- 
the  highest  degree  and  promotes  a  wholesome  ^^^^^'^^ 
public  opinion  to  which  the  administrators  are 
quickly  responsive.  England  lost  her  Ameri- 
can colonies,  and  has  had  chronic  trouble 
173 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

with  Ireland,  because  she  failed  to  afford 
them  adequate  measure  of  home-rule,  while 
she  has  succeeded  in  maintaining  relations 
with  Canada  and  Australia  by  developing 
their  self-government ;  and  her  dangers  in  the 
East  are  because  the  iron  hand  still  rules  in 
India  and  outbreaks  follow  the  disregard  of 
the  natural  government  of  the  native  peo- 
.  pies.  As  that  education  is  best  which  de- 
velops a  man  to  self-government,  in  accord 
with  natural  law,  so  it  would  seem  that  form 
of  government  is  best  which  develops  a  self- 
governing  community,  in  accord  with  natural 
law. 

Under  any   and   every   form   of   govern- 
Selection  of  ment,  and  not  least  in  the  highly  organized 
ficers^  ^^"      communities  where  self-government  is  most 
developed,  there  must  be  selection  of  those 
who  are  to  do  the  actual  work  of  adminis- 
tration.    Every  engine,  however  truly  built, 
requires  an  engineer  to  run  it,  every  machine 
some  one  to  keep  it  in  repair.   No  engine  is  of 
use  without  a  good  engineer,  and  no  machin- 
ery of  government  without  good  administra- 
tors.    A  good  engineer  may  do  more  with 
a  poor  engine  than  a  poor  engineer  with  a 
good  engine ;  a  fit  monarch  may  be  better 
174 


OF   POLITICS 

than  an  unfit  president.  An  all-important 
question  in  the  art  of  government  is  how 
the  selection  of  its  administrators  shall  be 
made. 

Now  the  process  of  natural  selection  must 
vary  according  to  what  is  to  be  selected.  In  The  Process 
simple  pastoral  life,  the  man  of  greatest  ex-  °^  Selection 
perience,  of  length  of  years,  the  patriarch, 
was  the  fit  ruler.  In  fighting  times,  under 
hereditary  rule,  if  the  king's  heir  did  not 
prove  himself  a  good  fighter,  he  was  replaced 
by  force  of  arms  or  displaced  by  polite  de- 
vice, and  the  great  captain,  the  real  com- 
mander, succeeded  to  the  real  headship.  But 
under  the  complex  relations  of  modern  gov- 
ernment these  simple  processes  are  not  ade- 
quate. In  a  given  form  of  government,  the 
best  government  is  government  by  the  best, 
the  most  fit,  men.  If  aristocracy  were  as 
good  as  its  word,  if  class  government  were 
government  by  the  best  class,  it  would  have 
earned'  the  right  to  survive.  But  it  has  not 
so  proved.  Carlyle  put  forth  a  simple  and 
sufficing  recipe  for  good  government  in 
"Find  your  Hero  and  obey  him."  This  The  Hero 
again  is  the  best  government,  the  rule  of  ^®"P® 
the  best.  But  first,  to  catch  your  hare,  or 
your  Hero  —  how  shall  that  be  done }  It  is 
I7S 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

in  this  first  question  that  the  rub  comes,  and 
this  simple  recipe  fails.  Carlyle  was  quite 
ready  indeed  to  name  the  Hero,  —  but  his 
choice  was  not  always  beyond  impeachment. 
It  becomes  evident  that  the  Hero  must  some- 
how be  selected,  or  elected,  and  Democracy 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  best  instrument  yet 
devised  to  that  end. 

If,  indeed,  Democracy  were  but  a  count  of 
Democracy  noses,  there  might  be  more  reason  to  despair 
orNoseT^*  of  it.  But  humankind  is  not  organized  on 
that  basis.  The  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, in  asserting  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  means  equal  before  the  law.  Other- 
wise it  would  put  Democracy  and  all  govern- 
ment on  a  false  basis,  not  in  accord  with 
fact.  For  men  do  not  wear  hats  of  the 
same  size,  nor  can  any  Declaration  or  other 
means  bring  them  to  that  equality.  They 
diifer  in  quality  as  well  as  in  quantity  of 
brains ;  and  education,  which  can  do  much, 
cannot  overcome  born  differences.  If  every 
man  is  as  good  as  another  and  a  little  better, 
it  is  anarchy,  no-headedness,  that  is  in  sight. 
Who  shall  be  rulers,  and  who  ruled  —  this 
is  as  much  a  question  to  Democracy  as  to 
any  form  of  government.  It  is  fraternity, 
the  brotherhood  of  man,  that  forms  an  actual 
176 


OF   POLITICS 

basis  for  Democracy.  And  in  government, 
as  in  the  family  itself,  as  in  all  forms  of  or- 
ganization, there  must  be  division  of  labor, 
according  to  capabilities.  As  the  ruler  is  no 
longer  the  chief  fighter,  he  can  no  longer 
fight  himself  into  rule ;  the  ballot  has  been 
devised  to  select  him. 

An  essential  of  Democracy  is  therefore  the 
free  play  of  that  leadership  which  always  ex-  Leadership 
ists  among  men,  no  matter  how  few.  "There 's 
naught  men  crave  so  much  as  leadership."  But 
leadership,  like  most  attributes  of  humanity, 
is  a  relative  quality  :  there  is  no  set  line  be- 
tween leaders  and  led.  Each  man  is  a  leader 
to  some  of  his  fellows,  and  looks  to  others  or 
to  some  other,  avowedly  or  unconsciously,  as 
his  leader.  Thus  a  democratic  state  is  built 
together.  The  communist,  seeking  equality 
of  property  and  person,  seeks  first  a  leader 
toward  his  destructive  millennium  who  will 
preach  down  leadership  while  he  fulfills  it. 
It  is  a  fact  that  this  natural  and  necessary 
leadership  is  often  more  actively  asserted, 
particularly  in  modern  city  life,  by  lower 
than  by  upper  men,  and  this  reversal  is  one 
of  the  failures  of  Democracy. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Democracy  has  had 
its  failures.     But  no  system  of  government 
177 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

Democracy  devised  by  and  for  humanity  has  been  with- 
Type^  ®^*  out  failures  —  and,  on  the  whole,  greater 
failures.  This  is  but  saying  that  humanity 
is  not  perfect.  Kings  never  governed  so 
wisely  but  that,  sooner  or  later,  they  must 
be  discrowned  ;  emperors  but  that  their  em- 
pires must  be  sundered.  The  hybrid  rule  of 
aristocracy  was  but  an  unstable  equilibrium 
that  presently  became  the  rule  of  the  one  or 
the  rule  of  the  many.  Democracy,  after  all, 
is  the  resultant  of  the  political  law  of  gravi- 
tation. It  is  an  early  form  of  government ; 
it  is  also,  in  the  evolution  of  civilization,  the 
highest  and  perhaps  the  final  type.  It  is 
the  only  type  in  which  the  pyramid  stands  on 
its  base,  not  on  its  apex. 

For  all  modern  states  of  high  development 
Develop-       approach  with  more  or  less   rapidity  demo- 
SlmVcrlcy^  cratic  rule.     In  Germany,  the  Emperor,  hold- 
ing to  his  theory  of  personal  sovereignty  in 
face  of  events,  fights  a  losing  battle  against 
parliamentary  government,  and  the  signs  of 
the  times  point  to  the  resurrection  of  demo- 
cracy in  Russia,  following  the  emancipation 
of   the  serfs  and  an  increasing  freedom  of 
thought  and  of  speech,  redeeming  that  great 
land  from  autocratic   power.     In   England, 
constitutional  monarchy  survives  because  it 
178 


OF   POLITICS 

is  no  other  than  a  democracy.  The  Crown 
has  no  will  against  the  people's  will  —  that 
were  high  treason,  were  it  still  worth  while 
to  cut  off  kings'  heads.  The  Lords  can  do  no 
more  than  move  arrest  of  judgment,  and  set 
the  Commons  to  think  twice.  Because  Eng- 
land has  developed  into  a  democracy  which 
is  not  also  a  republic,  let  us  not  haggle  about 
names  :  let  rather  this  democracy  and  that 
democracy  compare  notes,  to  see  what  in  the 
other's  system  may  better  its  own. 

And  the  tendency  is  not  only  toward  De- 
mocracy, but  toward  the  extreme  of  universal  Universal 
suffrage.  There  are  fond  mothers  who  wish  S^^^'^^g® 
the  universe  were  so  constructed  that  chil- 
dren might  learn  to  swim  before  they  dare 
the  water,  and  timorous  statesmen  wish  that 
universal  suffrage  might  not  come  until  the 
people  are  trained  to  it.  Nature  insists  on 
the  heroic  method  ;  it  is  her  way  because  it 
is  the  only  way.  It  is  for  parents,  by  alert 
care,  to  prevent  danger;  it  is  for  the  educated, 
in  like  manner,  to  assist  the  ignorant  against 
their  ignorance.  Undoubtedly,  there  is  dan- 
ger. The  sudden  revolutions  of  republican- 
izing,  not  yet  republican,  France,  illustrate 
the  danger.  The  history  of  our  Southern 
States  since  the  civil  war  illustrates  the  dan- 
179 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

ger.  It  is  real.  But  it  is  not  overwhelming. 
Responsibility  can  only  be  learned  through 
responsibility.  And  it  is  never  illiteracy 
that  has  the  casting  vote  :  that  belongs  with 
the  men  who,  thinking,  lead.  If  they  will 
—  of  course,  if  they  will !  If  they  will  not, 
it  is  not  for  them  to  cast  stones. 

Suffrage  has  been  associated  historically 
Woman  with  the  more  active,  the  male  sex.  As  the 
rage  passive  sex  has  become  more  active,  woman 
suffrage  has  become  a  practical  question. 
Since  women  have  claimed  and  won  the  right 
to  earn  their  living,  to  hold  property,  to  run 
the  state,  their  right  to  vote  seems  indeed  a 
logical  sequence.  It  is  perhaps  a  question 
whether  it  is  worth  while  to  add  to  woman- 
kind this  burden  of  responsibility,  to  add  to 
the  suffrage  this  increase  of  machinery,  by 
a  duplication  which  might  avail  little  and 
would  cost  much.  With  the  woman  of  con- 
science, of  education,  of  high  purpose,  add- 
ing her  vote  to  that  of  the  best  men,  must 
come  also  to  the  polls  the  woman  of  degra- 
dation, of  ignorance,  ready  to  sell  her  vote 
as  she  sells  herself.  The  influence  of  woman 
in  politics  need  be  no  less  vital  because  she 
does  not  take  mechanical  part  in  voting ;  if 
she,  as  mother,  wife,  sister,  daughter,  calls 
1 80 


OF   POLITICS 

to  the  manhood  of  the  nation  to  come  up 
higher,  it  responds.  There  could  be  no  war 
in  a  nation  where  women  opposed  war,  save 
when,  for  the  defense  of  homes  and  honor, 
men  and  women  alike  responded,  each  in 
their  way,  to  the  nation's  need. 

The  form  of  government  evolved  for  our 
day  is  thus  a  democracy  of  universal  suf-  Precautions 
frage,  responsive  to  responsible  leaders.  The  Democracy 
method  of  government  must  accordingly  pro- 
vide against  unintelligent  and  hasty  action 
by  the  crowd  under  intoxication  of  brute  im- 
pulse or  bad  leadership,  and  provide  for  the 
selection  and  direction  of  fit  and  true  leaders. 
A  wide  and  wholesome  education,  that  shows 
the  real  relations  underlying  mere  surface 
relations,  is  thus  the  first  need  of  Democracy. 
America  early  recognized  this  fact  by  her 
system  of  common  schools.  The  founders 
of  the  American  Constitution,  whom  experi- 
ence has  proved  to  be  among  the  wisest  of 
men,  prescribed  many  checks  against  hot- 
blooded  action  by  the  people,  some  of  which 
have  proved  most  effective  and  others  singu- 
larly ineffective.  Sir  Henry  Maine  speaks 
of  the  safeguards  over  the  amendment  of  the 
Constitution,  requiring  now  the  concurrent 
i8i 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

action  of  a  hundred  legislative  chambers  or 
the  people  of  nearly  fifty  States ;  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  Supreme  Court ;  of  the  denial  to 
the  States  of  power  to  impair  the  obligations 
of  contracts  —  as  "  like  those  dams  and  dikes 
.  .  .  controlling  the  course  of  a  mighty  river 
which  begins  amid  mountain  torrents,  and 
turning  it  into  one  of  the  most  equable  water- 
courses in  the  world."  Contrariwise,  the 
Checks  electoral   college  does  not  elect :  it   proves 

ernment^"  ^^^  ^^  awkward  device  that  complicates  mat- 
ters. The  executive  was  intended  to  be  in- 
dependent of  Congress ;  but  the  power  of 
confirmation  vested  in  the  upper  house, 
through  the  spoils  system,  "  courtesy  of  the 
Senate,"  tenure-of -office  laws,  soon  developed 
dependence.  The  Senate  itself,  contrived 
to  prevent  bad  laws,  has  served  to  obstruct 
good  ones :  it  has  become  not  an  aristocracy 
conserving,  but  a  plutocracy  opposing,  which 
is  not  good.  The  upper  house,  in  many 
state  legislatures,  is  the  stronghold  of  corrup- 
tion. The  alternative  method  of  electing 
United  States  senators  by  state  legislatures, 
adopted  in  preference  to  direct  election  by 
the  people  of  the  State,  has  promoted  the 
election  of  state  legislators  on  national  party 
lines,  and  every  three  years  has  subordinated 
182 


OF   POLITICS 

questions  of  state  business  to  the  choice  of 
a  senator.  The  representatives  were  not  to 
take  office  at  once,  lest  they  should  be  too 
hot  from  the  people :  but  it  has  more  than 
once  happened  that  the  people  in  an  election 
showed  cool  common  sense  which  they  could 
not  apply  in  Congress  till  another  year  of 
down-hill  legislation  had  passed.  Congress 
itself  is  so  alarmed  as  to  the  bad  things  that 
it  may  do  that  it  ties  and  twists  itself  up  in 
red-tape  rules  which  prevent  it  from  doing 
good  and  needed  things.  The  supreme  judi- 
ciary, devised  to  steady  the  government  and 
right  Congress,  has  reversed  its  decisions 
from  a  packed  bench,  and  has  been  accused, 
in  its  legal-tender  decisions,  of  telling  Con- 
gress it  can  do  what  it  pleases  with  the  Con- 
stitution. It  has  been  said  that  our  checks 
on  government  check  government. 

In  the  evolution  of  government,  and  espe-  Parties 
cially  of  democratic  government,  political 
"  parties  "  have  been  developed  as  the  means 
of  expressing  the  will  of  the  people.  In  a 
sense,  they  have  existed  under  all  govern- 
ments ;  in  the  grand  prophetic  books  of  the 
Bible  can  be  heard  the  clash  of  opposing 
parties  in  Israel,  one  for  alliance  with  Egypt, 

183 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  other  for  alliance  with  Assyria,  while  the 
prophet-statesman  Isaiah,  the  reformer  and 
"mugwump"  of  his  time,  pleaded  for  a 
patriotic  self-reliance  "  whose  strength  is  to 
sit  still."  The  "  fathers  of  the  Republic,"  as 
is  seen  in  the  original  provision  of  the  Con- 
stitution by  which  the  one  second  in  the  vote 
for  President  should  become  Vice-President, 
looked  forward  to  a  unanimous  and  millennial 
patriotism,  in  which  parties  should  be  no 
more.  But  the  unanimous  election  of  Wash- 
ington and  the  "era  of  good  feeling"  in 
which  Madison  was  elected  with  but  one  dis- 
senting vote  were  soon  followed  by  party 
dissensions  which  tore  that  theory  to  tatters. 
Patriotism  rests  on  common  agreement ; 
parties  spring  from  mutual  disagreement. 
Patriots  disagree  as  to  what  principle  or 
policy  is  patriotism  —  hence  parties.  So  long 
A  natural  as  voters  differ  as  to  what  is  best  for  the 
state,  parties  exist.  They  are  a  natural  evo- 
lution, not  an  artificial  invention  —  as  those 
think  who  would  "  abolish  "  parties  to  cure 
their  evils.  Parties  are  the  means  by  which 
the  people  themselves,  self-organized,  shape 
their  own  issues,  by  formulating  the  princi- 
ples and  naming  the  candidates  for  or  against 
whom  voters  are  to  vote.  The  alternative 
184 


Evolution 


OF   POLITICS 

of  having  issues  shaped  by  government  offi- 
cials, as  for  the  French  plebiscite,  gives  a 
bureaucracy  or  a  ministry  undue  power,  and 
is  contrary  to  democratic  method.  The  re- 
fer endunij  or  direct  vote  of  the  people  in  place 
of  decision  by  representatives,  and  the  direct 
initiative  by  the  people  in  proposing  laws, 
would  in  no  wise  dispense  with  parties.  The 
use  of  parties  is  to  enable  each  voter  to  say, 
in  a  way  easy  to  him,  what  he  wants  his  gov- 
ernment to  do.  The  more  fully  we  recognize 
that  parties  are  our  natural  methods  of  de- 
ciding political  issues,  the  better  should  their 
function  be  fulfilled. 

When,  on  any  subject,  a  whole  community 
is  of  one  mind,  there  can  be  no  "  party  ques-  Non-party 
tion."  If  the  great  body  of  the  people  wills  Decisions 
to  have  something  done,  it  is  done ;  machin- 
ery cannot  stand  in  the  way ;  it  gets  done, 
despite  all.  Such  questions  solve  themselves : 
they  cannot  become  "issues."  For  "the 
common  defense  "  parties  unite  and  division 
disappears  ;  even  in  foreign  wars,  of  expan- 
sion or  conquest,  the  public  mind  is  apt  for 
the  time  to  decry  as  "traitors"  those  who 
oppose  what  they  think  "criminal  aggres- 
sion." An  administration  seldom  fails  to  get 
a  practically  unanimous  vote,  in  Congress  or 

185 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

Parliament,  for  war  supplies ;  difference  be- 
tween countries  belittles  and  overwhelms 
differences  within  country.  It  is  only  when 
two  contestants  are  of  unknown  or  fairly 
mated  strength  that  there  is  a  struggle.  A 
nearly  even  division  is  the  sine  qua  non  of 
party :  otherwise  the  overwhelming  majority 
has  its  way.  This  is  why  there  are  usually 
two  great  parties,  and  no  more,  and  these 
nearly  equal  in  voting  strength. 

Parties  furnish  the  means  to  enable  some 
Political  men  to  vote  on  one  side,  other  men  to  vote 
Campaigns    ^^  ^j^^  q^j^^j.  ^-^^^  ^f  ^  question  in  dispute. 

Thus  an  "  issue  "  is  made.  When  a  vote  is 
taken,  on  a  principle  or  policy  at  issue,  the 
voting  must  be  for  or  against,  "  yes  "  or  "  no." 
On  a  constitutional  amendment,  voters  do 
vote  "  yes  "  or  **  no  "  at  the  polls,  but  on  most 
questions  they  record  themselves  on  either 
side  by  naming  on  their  ballots  the  nominees 
who  take  the  same  view  that  they  take.  In 
a  natural,  normal,  "  ideal "  party  system,  two 
parties,  confronting  each  other  in  candid  and 
honest  disagreement,  state  each  in  its  "  plat- 
form "  the  principles  it  represents  and  the 
policy  it  proposes,  and  nominate  fit  men 
pledged  to  enact  or  execute  the  will  of  the 
people  expressed  in  their  election.  A  politi- 
i86 


OF   POLITICS 

cal  campaign  is  then  a  great  educational 
process  for  all  the  people,  a  common  school 
of  statesmanship,  in  which  by  pubUc  meet- 
ings, through  the  press,  and  in  personal  de- 
bate, each  voter  may  inform  himself,  *'make 
up  his  mind,"  and  cast  his  conscience  vote. 

But  parties  may  fail  of  their  purpose,  and 
need  to  be  supplanted  or  re-formed.  As  the  Re-form  of 
Constitution  permits  amendment  by  which  ^^^^^^^ 
the  framework  of  our  government  may  be 
modified,  so  our  party  system  permits  change 
in  the  policy  or  personnel  of  government. 
When  the  great  parties  ignore  or  evade  the 
real  question  on  which  people  want  to  vote, 
or  becloud  the  paramount  issue  of  the  hour 
by  multifarious  confusion  of  issues,  or  when 
they  treat  party  as  not  a  means  but  an  end, 
or  subordinate  patriotism  to  party-ism,  over- 
throw from  without  or  reform  from  within 
becomes  necessary  to  one  or  both. 

Then  a  new  party  or  third  party  may  be 
needed,  to  do  the  work  of  the  chemical  re-  Third-party 
agent  which  re-arranges  molecules  and  effects  Movements 
new  combinations  in  matter.  The  early 
statesmen,  the  politicians  of  later  days, 
evaded  the  issue  of  slavery  until  their  eva- 
sion nearly  lost  us  our  country ;  and  with 
the  watchword  of  liberty,  the  Republican 
187 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

party  supplanted  the  Whig  party  and  saved 
the  Union  at  the  awful  cost  of  civil  war. 
The  early  Abolitionists  preferred  to  "throw 
away  their  votes  "  as  a  protest  party,  because 
what  was  to  their  minds  the  most  vital  of 
issues  was  ignored,  and  thus  to  open  the 
way  for  a  party  which  would  face  the  issue 
which  the  great  parties  evaded.  So  also  the 
present  Prohibitionists,  the  labor  men,  the 
Irish  Nationalists  in  the  English  Parliament 
—  fanatics  willing  to  be  political  martyrs  in 
a  great  cause !  Thus  a  third  party,  reckless 
of  present  success,  builds  for  the  future,  hop- 
ing by  its  initiative  to  become  one  of  two 
great  parties,  or  to  bring  one  of  the  existing 
great  parties  to  accept  its  views.  As  a 
**  dominant  minority,"  holding  the  balance 
of  power,  able  by  alliance  with  one  of  the 
great  parties  or  by  opposition  to  give  the 
"casting  vote,"  such  a  party  may  become  a 
most  effective  element  in  active  politics, 
wholesome  or  destructive,  vitalizing  or  cor- 
rupting, far  beyond  its  numerical  strength. 
Or,  when  a  great  party  fails  to  realize  in  its 
policy  its  declared  principles,  or  loses  pur- 
pose and  seeks  only  to  perpetuate  its  power 
as  an  "  organization  "  or  "  machine,"  or  nom- 
inates men  untrue  to  its  principles  or  unfit  to 
i88 


OF   POLITICS 

represent  the  people,  then  also  a  "  reform " 
vote  by  those  dissatisfied  with  their  own 
party,  and  not  in  agreement  with  the  oppos- 
ing party,  has  its  use.  Thus  the  "  scratch- 
ing" Republicans  of  1879,  "voting  in  the 
air"  to  clear  the  air  —  not  the  assassins  but 
the  physicians  of  their  party  —  using  absten- 
tion as  a  warning  silence  !  Thus  the  Inde- 
pendents or  "mugwumps"  of  1884,  uniting 
with  their  opponents  to  elect  a  Democratic 
President  in  protest  against  what  they 
thought  an  unfit  nomination !  Thus  the 
"gold  Democrats"  of  1896,  helping  to  elect 
a  Republican  President  in  the  interest  of 
"honest  money"  and  "sound  currency!" 
A  third  party  is,  in  theory  as  in  fact,  always 
a  makeshift  to  supplant  or  to  reform  one  of 
two  great  parties,  a  bridge  by  which  to  cross 
to  firmer  ground. 

Disintegration  of  the  party  system  sets  in 
when  one  party  becomes  so  large  that  its  "Groups 
victory  seems  sure,  inviting  corruption,  jeal- 
ousies and  divisions,  or  where  both  parties 
break  into  "groups."  For  years  the  domi- 
nant party  in  New  York  city  was  divided 
into  "halls,"  one  of  which  allied  itself  with 
the  common  enemy  when  it  could  not  get  its 
terms  from  the  ruling  faction  of  its  own 
189 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

party.  In  European  legislative  bodies, 
"groups"  of  the  Right,  the  Center,  and  the 
Left,  in  shifting  and  shifty  alliances,  control 
policies  and  make  or  unmake  ministries,  un- 
til too  often  principles  are  forgotten  in  bar- 
gains for  place.  Some  observers  count  this 
a  normal  development  of  the  party  system, 
but  it  seems  rather  to  show  the  deadness  of 
decadence  —  to  be  revivified  into  wholesome 
two-sided  division  when  the  breath  of  a  live 
question  fans  the  coals.  For  government 
by  "groups"  becomes  a  government  by 
cabal,  and  belittles  the  influence  of  the  in- 
dividual by  confusing  the  effect  of  his  vote. 
The  abuse  of  parties  is  to  make  them  not  a 
The  Misuse  means  but  an  end,  to  put  party  before  patriae 
of  Parties  party-ism  first,  patriotism  second.  This  is 
that  law  of  death  which  nature  makes  part 
of  the  greater  law  of  life.  Party  crystal- 
lizes into  organization,  and  the  organization 
seeks  to  perpetuate  itself.  The  statesmen, 
the  voters,  who  would  realize  principles  into 
action,  find  the  machinery  no  longer  their 
instrument  but  their  master ;  the  chief  engi- 
neer has  usurped  the  captain's  place,  and 
is  running  the  ship  to  suit  his  pirate  crew 
instead  of  bringing  his  passengers  into  the 
haven  where  they  would  be.  The  "profes- 
190 


OF   POLITICS 

sional  politician  "  is  not  free  from  the  nar- 
rowing tendencies  of  the  professional  mind. 
As  the  doctor  boasts  the  skill  of  his  operation 
rather  than  the  saving  of  life,  the  lawyer 
thinks  of  the  precedents  for  his  case  rather 
than  the  wide  principles  of  justice,  the  min- 
ister emphasizes  joining  the  church  rather 
than  living  the  Christ-Ufe,  so  he  has  in  mind 
the  saving  of  the  party  rather  than  the  sav- 
ing of  the  country.  Thus  he  avoids  facing 
the  paramount  issue  on  which  voters  want 
to  vote,  lest  the  majority  should  be  against 
his  party ;  confuses  the  mind  and  throws 
dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  by  phrasing 
political  platitudes,  raising  multitudinous 
issues,  avoiding  specific  proposals  of  party 
action,  and  abusing  the  "record"  of  the 
other  party  instead  of  asserting  the  princi- 
ples of  his  own ;  and  nominates  men  who 
represent  the  absence  of  principle  but  who 
wear  the  party  uniform  and  shout  for  loyalty 
to  the  old  flag.  Washington,  in  his  Farewell 
Address,  warned  his  countrymen  against  the 
misuse  of  parties  as  "  potent  engines  by 
which  cunning,  ambitious,  and  unscrupulous 
men  will  be  enabled  to  subvert  the  power  of 
the  people,  and  usurp  for  themselves  the 
reins  of  government ;  destroying,  afterward, 
191 


of  Parties 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  very  engines  which  had  lifted  them  to 
unjust  dominion."  This  is  prophecy  of  the 
modern  party  "boss,"  over-lording  his  own 
party,  and  supported  by  his  fellow  of  the  op- 
posing party  through  the  "cohesive  influ- 
ence of  public  plunder"  or  the  necessary 
alliance  of  political  powers,  —  a  situation 
met  at  last  by  revolt  of  the  body  of  the  peo- 
ple against  the  usurpers  of  popular  rights, 
the  more  dangerous  the  longer  it  is  deferred. 
In  a  Greek  democracy  or  a  New  England 
Continuity  town  meeting,  where  all  may  meet  together, 
parties  may  make  and  break,  as  the  issue 
comes,  holding  together  so  long  as  the  need 
remains  and  no  longer,  whether  it  be  for  a 
century  or  a  day.  But  in  a  great  nation  of 
over  fifteen  million  voters,  and  polling  nearly 
fourteen  million  votes,  where  there  is  more 
or  less  geographical  or  other  difference  as 
to  what  should  be  the  paramount  issue, 
where  a  party  must  include  seven  million 
voters,  living  three  thousand  miles  apart,  a 
party  cannot  be  organized  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,  or  in  a  single  campaign.  A  high 
degree  and  wide  range  of  organization  is 
required  to  make  clear  the  principles  on 
which,  and  designate  the  men  for  or  against 
whom,  this  enormous  number  of  votes  is 
192 


OF   POLITICS 

to  be  cast.  Our  parties  must  have  geo- 
graphical unity  and  historical  persistence; 
sectional  feeling,  the  passion  of  the  moment, 
is  happily  inadequate  to  their  formation. 
With  all  its  disadvantages,  this  is  practically 
one  of  our  most  important  national  safe- 
guards. 

Yet  it  is  on  the  fluency  of  parties  that 
their  usefulness  and  the  safety  of  the  state  Fluency 
depend.  As  the  ocean  tides  sway  the  drops  Parties 
of  water,  so  parties  should  attract  by  their 
principles  the  suffrages  of  voters,  and  thus 
give  flexibility,  and  the  means  of  purification, 
to  government.  Rome  fell  before  internal 
corruption  and  external  attack  because  her 
government  lacked  adaptiveness  and  righting 
power ;  only  the  overwhelming  by  new  and 
cleaner  blood  could  wash  out  her  stains.  Our 
government  may  endure  the  longer,  because 
we  can  use  parties,  one  against  another,  to 
alter  or  reverse  policy  within  our  constitu- 
tional forms  without  revolution  and  to  purge 
the  state  of  corruption.  Parties  fall,  the 
Republic  survives.  To  accomplish  this,  we 
must  be  alert  to  prevent  corruption  within 
parties,  to  re-form  them  on  vital  issues,  to 
overwhelm  them  when  corrupt.  It  is  in  this 
way,  by  the  free  and  prompt  transfer  of  votes, 
193 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

whether  one  by  one,  or  through  a  third  party, 
that  our  nation  is  kept  safe  and  alive.  The 
successive  reversals  of  party  success  in  the 
four  Presidential  elections  of  1884  to  1896 
proved  how  safely  and  successfully  this  can 
be  done.  But  there  is  yet  a  simpler  way  in 
which  the  individual  citizen  may  have  his 
influence  in  the  body  politic, — by  his  part  in 
the  forming  of  public  opinion.  A  shower  of 
letters  in  the  morning  mail  on  the  desks  of 
legislators  has  carried  or  defeated  many  a 
measure,  and  a  president  has  been  influenced 
on  the  larger  questions  of  policy  by  the  huzzas 
of  the  crowd.  The  good  citizen  who  would 
have  good  government  must  see  to  it  that 
the  visible  and  audible  expressions  of  public 
opinion  represent  the  higher  and  not  the 
lower  thought  of  the  nation. 

Under   democratic   government,   it   is   of 

National       first  importance  that  real  issues  should  be 

Is^ues^*^       put    cleanly   and   clearly   to    popular    vote. 

Our  differentiation  into  national,  state,  and 

local   governments,  as  well   as  our  division 

into  parties,  affords  this  opportunity.     The 

broad  field  of  national  party  should  see  clear 

lines  drawn  on  the  "paramount    issue"  in 

national  affairs,  as  slavery,  or  a  protective  or 

194 


OF   POLITICS 

revenue  tariff,  or  the  standard  of  money,  or 
the  annexation  of  territory.  A  local  contest 
is  on  quite  other  lines,  and  chiefly  as  to  ques- 
tions such  as  how  far  the  town  or  city  shall 
undertake  public  works,  or  what  should  be 
its  policy  as  to  the  liquor  traffic.  Yet,  since 
national  party  organization  must  have  its 
roots  in  district  or  local  organization,  it  is 
usually  through  the  local  machinery  of  na- 
tional parties,  both  in  America  and  England, 
that  local  issues  are  shaped  ;  and  party  names  Party  Cries 
and  cries  are  used  to  influence  votes  on 
whether  or  not  to  build  a  new  road  or  start 
a  new  school.  A  curious  result  has  been 
that  in  two  of  our  States  voters  of  the  same 
party  name  may  take  exactly  opposite  sides 
of  a  state  issue,  as  when  in  one  State  the 
Republican  party  was  for  and  the  Democratic 
party  against  prohibition,  while  in  another 
in  the  same  campaign  the  relations  were  re- 
versed. This  incidental  evil  of  the  party 
system  is  thus  in  a  measure  its  own  correc- 
tive, for  it  should  teach  voters  to  vote  irre- 
spective of  party  name  on  real  issues,  first 
on  local  and  finally  on  national  questions, 
and  thus  promote  fluency  of  parties  and  re- 
sponsiveness within  them  to  public  opinion. 
If  the  people,  by  help  of  parties,  are  to 
195 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 


Issues 
should  be 
few  and 
simple 


Deposition 
by  popular 
Vote 


decide  what  they  will  have  done,  by  electing 
men  who  will  enact  or  execute  their  will,  it 
is  evident  that  the  issues  put  before  them 
should  be  few  and  simple.  Only  those, 
therefore,  need  be  elected  who  are  as  legis- 
lators or  executives  to  define  or  execute  a 
political  policy.  Those  who  are  to  adminis- 
ter justice,  as  judges,  sheriffs,  district  attor- 
neys; those  who  are  to  do  routine  public 
business,  as  assessors,  clerks,  "civil  ser- 
vants" in  general,  whose  functions  are  all 
essentially  non-partisan,  may  better  be  se- 
lected by  appointment,  or  by  business  exam- 
ination, or  by  agreement  among  parties, 
rather  than  by  competitive  election  at  the 
polls.  Intelligent  choice  cannot  be  made 
by  the  voter  for  scores  of  offices.  The 
courts  of  highest  judicial  function  which 
interpret  constitutions  and  laws  are  removed 
by  the  federal  constitution  from  popular 
election,  lest  calm  and  wise  judgment  be 
biased  by  party  controversy,  and  partisan 
appointments  of  judges  by  the  executive 
have  been  violations  of  its  spirit. 

We  lack  for  our  democracy  a  feature  which 

Athens    had   crudely   in    its    ostracism  —  a 

method  of  deposition  by  popular  vote  either 

of  an  elected  or  appointed  officer,  by  which 

196 


Transition 


OF   POLITICS 

two-thirds  or  three-fourths  of  the  voters,  a 
number  far  beyond  party  divisions,  could 
deprive  an  unworthy  or  unrepresentative  offi- 
cer of  his  place  and  deny  him  reelection,  so 
that  the  people  of  a  State  could  recall  their 
senator,  or  of  a  city  could  remove  their 
mayor  or  any  officer  so  unworthy  as  to  have 
lost  public  confidence  to  that  extent. 

It  is  too  often  true  that  the  everlasting 
"yea"  and  the  everlasting  "nay,"  as  Car-  Periods  of 
lyle  has  it,  can  be  much  beclouded  and  con- 
fused in  that  foggy  present  where  no  stars 
shine  clear.  There  are  transitional  periods 
when  parties  represent  nothing.  The  past 
issue  is  past,  the  next  issue  they  cannot  or 
will  not  see.  The  ins  are  in,  and  the  outs 
are  out :  that  is  the  difference.  The  ins 
want  to  keep  out,  the  outs  to  put  out,  their 
adversaries.  Leaders  who  fought  the  old 
battles  fear  new  grounds.  They  desire  to 
"keep  out  of  politics"  the  vital  issues. 
Sooner  or  later  the  spark  drops,  the  flame 
burns  :  the  dead  past  is  bid  bury  its  dead ; 
there  are  new  issues,  new  formings  of  the 
old,  new  men.  Meantime,  however,  the  vi- 
tality of  parties  wanes,  they  become  corrupt, 
they  become  machines  for  resisting  instead 
197 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

of  promoting  progress.  This  explains  why, 
after  a  great  issue  had  been  solved  by  a 
great   war,   the   American  people  set  itself 

Administra-  to    petty   tasks    of    administrative    reform. 

tive  Reform  ggfoj-e  a  locomotive  can  make  progress, 
broken  rails  must  be  mended,  bridges  re- 
built, the  tracks  cleared  of  cows.  This  is 
not  inspiring  work :  there  is  nobody  to  op- 
pose it — except  the  owners  of  cows.  Passen- 
gers lay  by,  and  wait  for  "  the  other  people  " 
to  do  the  work.  After  the  wreckage  of  the 
civil  war,  this  was  precisely  the  task  left  to 
the  American  nation :  reconstruction,  reha- 
bilitation, the  clearing  away  of  the  spoils  sys- 
tem, which  last  was  much  resisted  by  those 
having  vested  rights  in  spoils.  The  war 
party  lost  enthusiasm  in  this  work,  and  the 
sutlers  displaced  generals  as  leaders. 

Civil  service  reform  was  the  first  need  to 

The  spoils     set  parties  on  the  right  track  again.     The 

System  « spoils   system "   made    parties    ends,    not 

means.  Its  working  tended  to  prevent  par- 
ties shaping  themselves  anew  to  new  issues. 
Civil  service  reform  was  not  a  party  issue, 
because  there  was  no  other  side.  No  valid 
defense  of  the  spoils  system  could  be  made 
on  which  a  party  could  "go  to  the  people." 
That  is  true  of  most  measures  affecting  gov- 
198 


OF   POLITICS 

ernmental  machinery :  men  will  disagree  as 
to  where  they  want  to  go,  but  they  will  not 
disagree  that  if  they  are  to  go  anywhere  the 
locomotive  must  be  kept  in  good  working 
order.  Accordingly,  struggles  for  adminis- 
trative reform  are  not  between  parties  but  Conflicts 
within  parties,  and  chiefly  within  the  party  parties 
which,  being  in  possession,  can  accomplish 
reform.  The  contest  is  between  the  men 
who  see  the  real  use  of  parties,  that  is,  to 
meet  questions,  and  the  men  who  prefer  in 
their  own  interest  or  inertia  to  keep  things 
as  they  are  and  leave  disturbing  questions 
undecided.  It  is  a  misfortune  when  the  nom- 
ination of  unfit  men  turns  the  popular  vote 
from  public  to  personal  issues,  or  when  cor- 
ruption makes  necessary  a  vote  upon  the 
mere  machinery  of  administration,  or  when 
the  machinations  of  politicians  confuse  the 
citizen  with  multifarious  or  beclouded  issues. 
This  is  but  clearing  away  of  weeds  instead 
of  growing  crops.  Yet  when  the  growth  of 
weeds  chokes  the  land,  it  becomes  the  first 
business  of  life  to  root  out  the  weeds.  But 
this  must  be  a  continuing  process,  in  politics 
as  in  farming.  Mere  machinery  is  of  little 
avail.  Underneath  all,  public  opinion  rules  ; 
that  alone  is  the  final  check.  Every  machine 
199 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

must  have  vitalizing  force  behind  it ;  every 
system  of  spies  presuppose  an  honest  man 
somewhere.  The  people  judge  the  judg- 
ments and  rule  the  rulers.  The  supreme 
court  is  that  of  the  whole  people.  Here 
again  we  reach  universal  suffrage,  and  can- 
not evade  it. 

When  we  ask  what  government  is  to  do, 
What  Gov-  two  theories,  of  individualism  and  collectiv- 
must  and  ^^^*  confront  US.  Government  musl  keep 
may  do  order,  safeguard  persons  and  property,  define 

the  marital  and  parental  responsibilities  on 
which  the  social  order  is  based,  determine 
property  and  contract  rights  and  administer 
civil  justice,  prevent  and  punish  crime,  fix 
the  political  relations  of  citizens  within  the 
state  and  represent  them  with  foreign  powers. 
These  have  been  called  the  constituent  func- 
tions, those  which  constitute  government : 
they  simply  prevent  interference  with  the 
individual  and  make  sure  he  is  let  do  {laissez 
faire)  as  he  will.  Government  may  also  con- 
cern itself  with  the  administration  of  trade 
and  industry,  of  commerce  and  navigation, 
of  labor,  of  coinage  and  banks,  of  highways, 
canals,  and  railroads,  of  postal,  telegraph,  and 
telephone  facilities,  of  water  and  light  sup- 
200 


OF   POLITICS 

ply,  of  education,  of  sanitation  and  quaran- 
tine, of  charity,  of  forestry  and  fisheries,  and 
through  sumptuary  laws  of  the  conduct  and 
habits  of  the  people.  These  have  been  called 
the  ministrant  functions,  and  they  may  be  ex- 
ercised in  various  degrees,  —  regulative,  con- 
structive, operative,  —  until  in  the  extreme 
they  culminate  in  the  socialist  organization, 
in  which  each  worker  is  an  industrial  soldier 
working  in  state  industries  under  order  of 
government  officials.  These  two  extremes 
represent  the  two  extreme  theories  of  gov- 
ernment. According  to  one,  government  is 
to  do  nothing  —  laissez  faire  :  it  is  chiefly  to 
prevent  wrong  by  policing  it.  According  to 
the  other,  government  is  to  do  everything : 
as  the  highest  type  of  organized  human  coop- 
eration, it  must  be  paternal,  constructive, 
and  accomplish  everything. 

In  governments,  as  actually  existing  and 
working,  particularly  in  the  several  States  of  Variant 
the  American  Union  and  their  great  cities.  Govern-  °^ 
almost  every  variety  of  combination  within  ments 
these  extremes  is  indeed  to  be  found  —  and 
this,  in  foreign  countries,  without  regard  to 
the  form  of  government.     England,  a  mon- 
archy in  form,  is  historically  the  champion 
of  laissez  faire  or  non-interference    govern- 
20 1 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

ment ;  yet  it  owns  and  operates  telegraph, 
telephone,  postal  savings-bank,  and  parcel 
post  systems,  and  has  been  pushed  by  its 
democracy  through  trades  unions  into  ex- 
tremes of  factory  legislation.  Some  English 
City  and  cities  sell  water,  gas,  electricity  ;  others  oper- 
E^terprises  ^^^  street-tramways  ;  others  afford  free  libra- 
ries, museums,  baths,  music,  recreation  for 
their  citizens ;  London  has  a  free  ferry.  Ger- 
many and  Austria  own  and  operate  all  their 
railways  :  France  and  Russia  some ;  Italy  has 
taken  state  possession  of  all  and  again  put 
their  operation  under  private  corporations  — 
but  a  private  company  supplies  through-car 
facilities  throughout  the  continent  of  Europe. 
Spain  works  the  tobacco  factories  as  a  govern- 
ment monopoly,  for  purposes  of  revenue ;  Nor- 
wegian cities  monopolize  the  liquor  traffic  in 
the  interests  of  temperance.  Germany  pro- 
vides compulsory  insurance  and  old-age  pen- 
sions for  workingmen.  The  United  States 
favors  or  taxes  specific  industries  by  means 
of  a  protective  tariff.  The  State  of  New  York 
owns  and  operates  its  great  canal.  It  engages 
its  prisoners  in  trades,  though  laws  originat- 
ing from  the  trades  unions  prevent  sale  of 
their  products.  All  American  cities  maintain 
streets,  bridges,  parks,  libraries,  hospitals,  wa- 

202 


OF   POLITICS 

ter-supply ;  some  produce,  others  purchase, 
gas  or  electricity.  New  York  city  has  a  poor 
fund  from  which  free  coal  has  been  supplied. 
In  the  last  analysis,  the  most  vital  issue 
in  politics,  in  most  times  and  the  world  over.  Individual- 
is  this  between  individualism  and  coUectiv-  colectivism 
ism,  the  question  whether  the  individual  cit- 
izen shall  do  all  possible  for  himself  or  the 
collective  power  of  the  state  shall  do  all  pos- 
sible for  him.  These  lines  in  government 
correspond  somewhat  to  those  between  "  Pro- 
testant "  and  **  Catholic  "  in  religion  ;  "  Be- 
ing a  Catholic,  I  am  naturally  a  socialist," 
said  one  man.  The  struggle  underlies  all  his- 
tory, for  this  collective  power  may  be  wielded 
by  a  monarch  or  in  a  Republic  as  well  as 
under  socialism,  in  which  society  undertakes 
to  arrange  the  life  of  each  citizen  for  the 
collective  good,  or  under  communism,  in 
which  each  citizen  is  compelled  to  surrender 
his  goods  or  his  earnings  for  the  common  use. 
The  collectivist  view  is  that  the  state  or  sov- 
ereign is  wiser  for  each  citizen  than  he  can 
be  for  himself,  and  that  government  should 
have  the  largest  functions ;  the  individualist 
view  is  that,  since  the  state  is  made  up  of 
individuals,  and  can  be  no  wiser  than  they, 
each  citizen  can  best  decide  what  he  can  do 
203 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

best,  and  so  government  should  be  confined 
to  the  least  functions. 

From  a  stage  of  government  in  which  a 
Tyranny  and  king  was  actually  sovereign,  when  the  king's 
Anarchy  ^-jj  ^^g  j^^^  which  he  made,  executed,  and 
interpreted,  when  he  chose  his  advisers  and 
servants  and  cut  off  their  heads  as  he  pleased, 
when  he  granted  "  monopolies  "  and  licensed 
all  work  and  trade,  up  to  the  constitutional 
and  democratic  governments  of  our  own 
times,  there  has  indeed  been  a  development 
in  which  the  large  workings  of  large  laws, 
the  counteraction  between  the  centripetal 
and  centrifugal  forces  in  social  organization, 
have  been  persistently  evident,  amidst  all 
diversities  of  detail.  The  continuing  strug- 
gle is  that  between  collectivism,  the  power 
of  the  state,  whether  concentrated  in  kingly 
power  or  organized  as  democratic  socialism, 
and  individualism,  the  right  of  an  individual 
to  a  free  path  in  his  affairs  so  long  as  he  re- 
gards the  rights  of  others.  Tyranny  is  the 
abuse  of  one,  anarchy  is  the  caricature  of 
the  other.  This  conflict  of  the  ages,  re-form- 
ing in  the  past,  is  not  less  the  question  of 
the  future,  under  re-formed  democracy,  and 
indeed  is  the  natural  line  of  cleavage  be- 
tween the  parties  in  democracy. 
204 


OF   POLITICS 

Under  any  form  of  government,  public 
opinion  as  to  what  government  sliould  do  fol-  American 
lows  closely  upon  what,  in  its  historical  de-  Deveiop- 
velopment,  that  government  actually  does  do.  ment 
Regulative  functions  are  in  fact  so  merged 
into  operative  functions  that  in  many  fields 
they  are  confused  in  the  public  mind. 
Americans  are  so  used  to  the  post  as  a  part 
of  government,  for  which  large  deficits  are 
to  be  paid,  that  they  overlook  comparison 
with  the  not  less  complicated  express,  tele- 
graph, and  through-car  service,  admirably  or- 
ganized and  self-supporting  in  private  hands. 
It  is  not  seen  that  the  government  may  coin 
money  and  regulate  banks  without  doing,  as 
now,  a  banking  business.  In  America,  the 
coordination  of  national,  state,  and  munici- 
pal or  other  local  governments  has  rather 
subordinated  the  question  of  what  govern- 
ment shall  do,  to  the  question  which  govern- 
ment shall  do  it.  The  line  of  party  cleavage 
between  those,  originally  Federalists,  after- 
wards called  National  Republicans  or  Whigs, 
and  now  Republicans,  who  favored  a  strong 
central  nation  and  a  "  broad "  construction 
of  our  written  constitution,  and  those  ori- 
ginally Anti-Federalists  ,  afterwards  called 
Democratic  Republicans,  and  now  Demo- 
205 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

crats,  who  favored  state  rights  and  the  lib- 
erty of  the  individual,  under  a  ''strict"  con- 
struction of  the  constitution,  also  divides  in 
general  those  who  would  have  most  done 
and  those  who  would  have  least  done  by  the 
several  governments,  the  collectivists  and 
the  individualists.  But  the  march  of  events 
has  often  compelled  the  waiver  of  party 
principle,  as  when  Jefferson,  without  consti- 
tutional warrant,  purchased  the  Louisiana 
territory  from  France  for  the  nation. 

In  fact,  neither  extreme  plan  is  in  actual 
Neither  operation,  or,  absolutely  applied,  works.  We 
works™^  may  let  well  enough  alone,  but  we  will  not 
let  ill  alone :  the  sense  of  brotherhood 
makes  us  to  that  extent  our  brother's 
keeper.  But  a  government  may  be  fraternal 
without  being  paternal.  The  schoolmaster 
proves  the  cheapest  policeman.  Christianity, 
humanity,  bid  us  care  for  the  sick,  and  if 
need  be  through  the  state.  On  the  other 
hand,  government  fails  when  it  undertakes 
to  regulate  everything  by  law  or  to  monopo- 
lize or  direct  business.  Some  things  laws 
cannot  do.  They  are  indeed  nothing  unless 
a  public  opinion  supports  them.  They  are 
nothing  when  they  oppose  themselves  to 
human  nature,  to  the  laws  of  the  universe. 
206 


OF   POLITICS 

"Prohibition  does  not  prohibit."  "Protec- 
tion does  not  protect."  To  attempt  too 
much  by  governmental  machinery  either 
makes  the  machinery  our  master  or  breaks 
it  down. 

A  free,  popular,  democratic  government 
should  indeed  fulfill  the  greatest  good  to  the  Degenerate 
greatest  number,  and  must  abide  by  that  democracy 
test.  For  in  a  degenerate  democracy,  which 
does  not  accomplish  this,  but  results  in  con- 
centrating wealth  and  comfort  in  the  pluto- 
cratic few,  in  which  under  a  seeming  indi- 
viduaHsm  a  real  despotism  has  developed, 
the  pendulum  is  sure  to  swing  toward  a  col- 
lectivism tending  toward  socialism  and  finally 
toward  communism,  the  use  of  the  power  of 
the  state  to  control  business,  "give  every 
man  work,"  and  distribute  the  social  earn- 
ings among  all  the  citizenry.  This  trend  is 
strengthened  on  the  one  hand  by  the  pro- 
fessional tendency  of  an  office-holding  class 
of  "spoilsmen"  to  extend  its  operations  into 
the  commercial  as  well  as  the  political  field, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  discontent 
among  those  who  fail  to  get  work  as  well  as 
those  who  want  money  without  work. 

But  the  development  of  modern  government 
has  been  in  the  struggle  of  the  individual  for 
207 


The  Rights 
of  the  Indi- 
vidual 


Socialism 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

his  own  rights.  The  ancient  monarchy  was 
absolute;  the  modern  monarchy  is  limited. 
The  Greek  aristocracy  constituted  the  state  ; 
the  English  aristocracy  only  controlled  the 
state.  In  the  Greek  democracy  the  citizen 
served  the  state:  in  American  democracy 
the  state  serves  the  citizen.  The  evolution 
of  government  culminates  thus  in  the  Re- 
public of  Democracy,  the  servant  and  not 
the  master  of  the  people,  preserving  the  pub- 
lic peace,  protecting  the  right  of  the  citizen 
to  live  his  own  life,  responsive  to  public 
opinion,  of  local  home-rule,  differentiated 
functions  and  federated  national ty,  a  govern- 
ment truly  of,  by,  and  for  the  people.  The 
citizen  is  not  for  the  state,  but  the  state  for 
the  citizen. 

Socialism  is  the  re-action,  or  retrogression, 
which  seeks  to  make  Democracy  no  longer 
individual,  but  a  collectivism.  The  citizen 
is  not  to  live  his  own  life,  to  mind  his  own 
business,  to  control  his  own  affairs,  to  be 
his  own  master,  but  is  to  surrender  his  in- 
dividuality to  a  collective  control  of  private 
as  well  as  public  affairs,  for  his  own  good 
and  for  the  good  of  all.  The  citizen  is  again 
to  serve  the  state.  It  is  an  honest  nostrum 
for  the  cure  of  evident  present  ills  of  demo- 
208 


OF   POLITICS 

cracy.  But  to  cure  those  ills  we  have,  we 
are  to  "  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of." 
The  argument  for  socialism  is  a  roseate  as- 
sumption that  because  some  things,  as  roads 
and  streets,  are  effectively  managed  by  the 
state,  —  though  roads  may  be  ill  made  and 
streets  ill  cleaned,  —  therefore  the  state 
should  manage  all  and  subordinate  the  citi- 
zen. The  possibilities  of  the  "boss"  in  a 
socialistic  state  are  beyond  imagining,  for 
there  are  other  motives  than  money.  So- 
cialism is  the  offer  of  a  social  Catholic  and 
infallible  church  to  give  peace  of  mind  to 
the  perplexed  Protestant  willing  to  surrender 
his  liberty  of  action  to  a  state  Pope  called 
the  People.  It  transfers  tyranny  from  mon- 
archy to  democracy.  It  is  the  backward 
swing  of  the  pendulum. 

In  all  government  the  question  how  it 
shall  be  used  is  doubly  dependent  upon  the  Taxation 
question  how  it  shall  be  paid  for.  As  money 
has  become  more  and  more  the  lever  of  private 
affairs,  taxation  has  become  more  and  more 
the  problem  of  government.  With  progress, 
the  security  of  the  person  being  assured,  the 
security  of  property  becomes  prominent.  It 
is  evident  that  many  questions,  sure  to  be 
209 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  live  issues  of  ourselves  and  our  immediate 
descendants,  are  questions  of  property,  to  be 
settled  by  taxation.  The  payment  of  the 
national  debt,  the  banking  system,  the  cur- 
rency question,  the  revenue  and  tariff  issue, 
the  land  question,  the  restriction  of  corpo- 
rations, communism  itself,  to  all  these  gov- 
ernment must  make  answer  in  terms  of  tax- 
ation. On  what,  on  whom,  how  and  to  what 
extent  shall  taxes  be  laid  —  to  these  simple 
but  not  very  easy  problems  the  questions  of 
the  present  and  the  immediate  future  resolve 
themselves.  Taxes  are  a  payment  by  the 
people  which  may  be  the  most  productive 
and  useful  or  the  most  wasteful  and  harmful 
of  investments,  according  to  the  methods  by 
which  and  the  purposes  for  which  they  are 
used. 

Those  values  which  result  not   from  the 
Social  labor  of  individual  brains  or  hands,  but  from 

natural  resources  or  social  development, 
would  seem  to  belong  not  so  much  to  individ- 
uals but  to  the  community,  either  for  com- 
mon, that  is,  any  one's  use,  or  for  use  by  the 
state  or  the  sovereign  as  the  embodiment 
of  the  common-wealth.  Thus  the  sovereign 
owns  all  the  land,  and  titles  to  individual 
holdings   trace   back  to    "grants,"  and  are 

2IO 


Values 


OF   POLITICS 

subject  to  rights  of  "treasure  trove,"  of  sub- 
surface values,  and  in  general  of  "eminent 
domain.**  The  heroic  defense  in  England  of 
"  commons,'*  rights  to  pasturage,  to  hunting, 
to  fisheries,  has  been  against  encroachments 
by  grantees  —  not  against  the  sovereign 
rights.  A  chief  problem  to  be  solved  through 
taxation  is  how  to  retain  for  the  people  these 
social  values  without  encroaching  on  individ- 
ual rights  and  earnings,  or  taking  from  citi- 
zens the  stimulus  to  individual  effort.  Henry  Henry 
George's  assertion  was  that  this  whole  pro-  pf^n^®' 
blem  centered  on  the  land  and  would  be  solved 
by  a  "single  tax"  which  takes  for  the  com- 
munity the  rent  of  the  land,  its  yearly  return 
from  natural  superiority  or  social  develop- 
ment, and  leaves  to  the  private  owner  right 
of  possession  and  the  yearly  return  from  his 
labor  in  tilling  it  or  his  capital  in  improving 
it  with  buildings.  Nature  gives  not  only  to 
some  land,  but  to  some  brains,  greater  pro- 
ductive capacity  than  others,  and  while 
patent  and  copyright  laws,  as  provided  by 
the  constitution,  and  the  security  guaranteed 
to  private  property,  assure  to  him  the  fruits 
of  his  brain  labor,  "income  taxes  "  and  legacy 
and  succession  duties  are  a  means  of  reclaim- 
ing for  the  community  some  portion  of  the 
2H 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

larger  wealth  which  the  cooperation  of  the 
community  has  enabled  the  richer  man  to 
acquire,  as  in  the  year  of  jubilee  the  Jews 
were  required  to  make  restitution. 

This  *'  social  increment,"  in  non-republican 
Return  to  States,  as  even  in  democratic  England,  be- 
the  People  ^omes  in  large  measure  the  income  of  the 
sovereign,  who  in  free  gift  or  from  motives 
of  policy,  returns  it  in  some  measure  for  the 
use  of  the  people.  Thus  the  palaces  and  the 
parks  of  monarchs  become  the  museums  and 
playgrounds  of  the  people,  in  many  of  "  the 
effete  despotisms  of  Europe,"  and  music  and 
other  entertainment,  like  \hQpanem  et  circen- 
ces  of  decadent  Rome,  are  sops  to  Cerberus. 
Republican  France  has  taken  over  from  the 
Empire  the  traditions  of  a  state-supported 
opera,  theatre,  and  school  of  music,  with  free 
performances  on  public  holidays,  and  the  suc- 
cess of  these  as  educational  institutions  has 
led  many  Americans  to  look  favorably  upon 
this  degree  of  socialism.  Certainly,  in  a  de- 
mocratic republic,  the  people  should  come 
to  their  own,  and  be  not  less  "well  off"  than 
under  less  popular  forms  of  government,  and 
when  the  fruits  of  the  social  cooperation  ac- 
crue rather  to  a  plutocracy  than  to  the  peo- 
ple, there  is   sure   to   be  social   discontent. 

212 


blems 


OF   POLITICS 

The  remedy  is  perhaps  in  recovering  for  ex- 
penditure on  behalf  of  the  people,  through 
taxation,  the  benefits  of  the  social  increment, 
and  leaving  the  people  otherwise  untaxed,  so 
that  they  have  money  to  use  for  private  and 
self-supporting  enterprises  of  social  improve- 
ment or  entertainment. 

There  are  some  things  worth  doing  which 
must  be  done,  if  at  all,  by  government,  be-  Large  Pro- 
cause  no  less  extensive  form  of  social  organ- 
ization can  cope  with  the  large  problem  in- 
volved. An  imaginative  astronomer  has 
indeed  seen  on  the  planet  Mars  evidence  of 
a  human  life  and  of  a  world-cooperation,  gov- 
ernment on  the  grandest  scale,  in  a  great 
system  of  canals,  necessary  in  the  drying-up 
stage  of  the  life-history  of  that  planet,  to 
supply  water  from  its  polar  to  its  torrid 
regions.  A  great  river  flows  through  thou- 
sands of  miles  ;  millions  at  its  mouth  are 
dependent  upon  thousands  at  its  source.  If 
forests  are  destroyed,  droughts  and  floods 
follow.  No  less  organization  than  the  power 
of  the  nation  can  cope  with  affairs  of  this 
magnitude.  There  was  like  justification  for 
the  first  Pacific  railroad,  built  across  the 
continent  during  the  civil  war,  and  for  the 
Erie  canal  in  the  early  history  of  New  York 
213 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

State.  So,  too,  in  our  cities,  adequate  breath- 
ing-spaces can  be  provided,  in  great  and 
small  park  reservations,  only  through  the 
governmental  machinery  of  the  municipality 
on  whose  behalf  the  State  exercises  its  right 
of  eminent  domain.  In  water-supply,  the 
same  large  treatment  is  needed.  Educa- 
tion is  a  necessary  equipment  for  the  citizen 
in  a  democracy,  and  as  some  parents  could 
not  or  would  not  supply  it  to  their  children, 
the  State  provides  it  for  all  and  compels  all 
to  come  in.  The  undertaking  of  postal  as 
well  as  educational  service  by  most  govern- 
ments is  an  outgrowth  of  both  lines  :  mail 
communication  is  a  matter  of  education,  but 
is  also  concerned  with  vast  distances  and 
wide  public  interests.  All  these  are  very 
practical  questions  to  us  and  to  those  who 
shall  come  after. 

It  may  indeed  be  said  that  in  government, 
Opportun-  as  in  all  human  affairs,  in  the  complexities 
and  cross-currents  of  modern  life,  it  is  easier 
to  state  principles  than  to  apply  them.  All 
governments  are  the  evolutionary  results 
of  a  process  of  adaptation.  Every  step  is 
a  resultant  of,  a  compromise  between  the 
forces  of  inertia  and  of  change.  Each  states- 
man is  in  a  sense  an  "opportunist,"  biding 
214 


ism 


OF  POLITICS 

the  right  moment  to  bring  his  principle  into 
play.  There  is  continual  conflict  between 
those  advocates  of  principle  who  desire  al- 
ways to  act  now,  radically  and  perhaps  rashly, 
and  those  advocates  of  policy  who  would  wait 
"the  more  convenient  season  "  which  perhaps 
may  never  come.  Between  this  Scylla  and 
Charybdis,  the  statesman,  the  citizen,  must 
always  be  making  his  difficult  choice.  There 
are  times  when  the  highest  principle  is  the 
timely  expediency. 

As  men  come  together  and  the  world  be- 
comes one,  it  is  seen  that  the  brotherhood  of  The  true 
man  is  the  goal  of  a  true  and  wide  patriotism.  Patriotism 
Yet  patriotism,  the  largest  of  virtues,  may 
be  de-humanized  into  the  most  deadly  of  vices. 
"  Our  country,  right  or  wrong  !  "  is  a  war-cry 
of  savagery,  not  of  civilization.  "  Our  coun- 
try—  may  it  always  be  right !  "  is  the  peace- 
word  which  prevents  war.  That  parties, 
differing  in  domestic  affairs,  should  perforce 
unite  in  any  quarrel,  however  unjust,  with 
foreign  peoples,  is  a  superstition  directly  in- 
citing party  leaders  to  foreign  wars  when 
domestic  dominance  is  in  jeopardy.  The 
bravest  patriotism  is  that  of  the  citizen  who 
dares  stay  his  country  from  wrong-doing  in 
215 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

face  of  that  wild  overwhelming  of  public 
opinion  —  "  By  Jingo,  we  will ! "  —  with  which 
the  savagery  latent  in  humankind  breaks  out 
in  each  generation.  The  horrid  argument 
that  wars  "  better  business,"  —  which  means 
for  the  time  the  diverting  of  workers  from 
productive  pursuits  into  a  consuming  army, 
the  lessening  of  their  number  by  killing  and 
maiming,  the  waste  of  material  and  destruc- 
tion of  property,  and  the  misdirection  of 
transportation  and  other  industries  to  un- 
productive purposes,  —  means  also  that  the 
fire  which  reduces  a  city  to  ashes  amid  a 
holocaust  of  human  lives  is  for  the  common 
weal.  This  is  the  devil's  logic  of  half  truth 
—  and  this  sowing  of  tares  indeed  brings  bit- 
ter harvest 

As  the  wide  earth  has  been  "  settled,*'  as 
The  Out-  the  migratory  tendency  therefore  becomes 
less  tribal  and  more  individual,  as  travel, 
commerce,  education,  civilization,  the  unifi- 
cation of  the  world,  break  down  the  barriers 
of  race ;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  men,  less 
"  subject  "  to  the  forces  of  nature  or  to  brute- 
force  of  men,  are  their  own  masters,  come  to 
their  own,  own  themselves  —  the  evolution 
of  manhood  develops  toward  self-governing 
democracy,  and  makes  for  peace.  Thus  at 
216 


come  of 
Democracy 


OF   POLITICS 

the  close  of  the  great  century  of  progress, 
despite  outbreaks  of  war  and  conquest  and 
injustice  among  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
national  relations  have  broadened  into  inter- 
national relations,  a  court  of  arbitration  for 
all  nations  is  growing  from  a  hope  to  a  ful- 
fillment, and  an  injustice  to  one  man  con- 
vulses the  whole  world.  A  true  Democracy, 
in  world-wide  brotherhood,  will  lead  mankind 
toward  an  age  of  golden  peace. 
217 


OF   RELIGION 


OF  RELIGION 

'ELIGION,   binding    anew    the 

material  with  the  spiritual,  ful-  Religion  the 
fills  man,  making  him  whole.  Art'^fLife 
It  is  therefore  the  supreme  art 
of  life.  To  heal  men,  to  make 
them  whole,  to  call  them  to  health,  whole- 
ness, holiness  —  for  these  words  are  all  one 
word  —  has  ever  been  the  end  of  religion. 
The  man  of  whole  life,  integer  vitaey  sang  the 
Roman  poet,  fears  not,  and  is  conqueror. 
Religion  sanctions  and  sanctifies  life,  is  its 
binding  force.     What,  then,  is  religion  } 

To  this,  the  question  of  the  ages,  sect 
makes  answer  with  creed,  Christianity  with  What  is 
Christ,  the  Jew  with  his  One  and  Only  Je-  R«ii&i°"? 
hovah,  Buddhists  with  the  Noble  Path  and 
Mahometans  with  the  teachings  of  Al  Koran ; 
priest,  ritualist,  puritan,  each  after  his  man- 
ner ;  while  the  reverent  agnostic  asks  if  he 
may  not  also  be  religious.  The  man  of  twi- 
light times — **and  in  his  soul  was  twilight" 
—  our  far  forefather,  like  the  savage  of  to- 
day, saw  in  the  lengthening  shadows  of  the 
setting  sun,  in  the  voices  of  the  dark  and 
of  the  storm,  in  dawn  and  cloud  and  stream 
and  wood,  in  the  mysteries  of  nature  and  of 

221 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

death,  something  beyond  this  material  and 
present  life,  and  imaged  a  Great  Spirit,  in  an 
unseen  world  where  dwelt  the  spirits  of  the 
dead,  in  worship  or  fear  of  whom  he  ruled 
his  life,  guided  by  medicine-man  or  primitive 
priest.  Here  was  the  early  development  of 
the  religious  instinct,  from  which  in  the  pro- 
gress of  mankind  was  evolved,  despite  con- 
fusion of  creed  and  of  ceremonial,  a  wider 
recognition  of  Supreme  Law  and  a  higher 
thought  of  God.  Throughout  the  earlier  re- 
ligions,—  nature-worship,  rites  to  ancestors, 
idolatry,  the  multifarious  gods  of  India,  the 
personification  of  manifestations  and  of  at- 
tributes in  Egyptian,  Greek,  Teutonic  mytho- 
logy, —  modern  thought  finds  evidence  of  a 
recognition,  if  dimly  or  not  at  all  by  the  peo- 
ple, yet  oftentimes  clearly  by  the  priests,  of 
a  Supreme  Spirit,  the  Only  God  of  Abraham, 
Rewarder  of  good  to  the  spirits  of  the  dead, 
in  some  cults  combated  by  a  World  Spirit 
or  Evil  One,  who  was  in  most  theogonies  a 
lesser  deity  to  be  overcome  by  the  Good  in 
the  final  judgment.  In  these  three  concepts, 
of  a  quasi  human  God,  of  an  after-life  of  men 
in  an  unseen  world,  of  the  relation  of  the 
ethical  aspects  of  life  to  the  Unseen,  a  mod- 
ern evolutionist   sees  the  essential  features 

222 


OF   RELIGION 

of  religion.  But  a  wider  thought  of  religion  Universal 
would  not  exclude  the  essentially  religious  Concepts 
spirit,  denied  by  temperament  or  habit  of 
intellect  the  conviction  of  a  personal  God, 
whose  perception  of  an  after-life  is  in  hope 
rather  than  in  belief,  which  nevertheless 
recognizes  in  the  universe  a  moral  order,  a 
Power  that  makes  for  rightness,  in  coordina- 
tion with  the  higher  or  spiritual  nature  of 
man  and  affording  a  spiritual  or  supera-mate- 
rial  sanction  for  right  conduct. 

That  this  world  is  ruled  by  righteousness 
is  a  thought  so  deep  in  the  race  that  it  is  The  Rule  of 
found  at  the  roots  of  language.  Our  very  ^^^^^ 
words  "morals"  and  '* ethics"  mean  customs, 
that  is  to  say,  customs  are  based  on  a  sense 
of  rightness  and  fitness,  and  from  them  our 
code  of  morals  or  ethics,  our  practice  of  right, 
has  developed.  In  the  wider  sense,  religion 
is  the  recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
higher  life,  the  spiritual,  over  the  lower  life, 
the  material,  which  gives  spiritual  sanction  to 
right  living  and  sanctifies  life.  For  the  soul, 
the  spirit,  must  have  its  supreme  place  in 
life. 

Thus  religion,  as  an  art  of  life,  is  the  art 
which  cultivates  spirituality,  which  develops 
223 


The  su- 
premacy of 
Spirit 


The  work- 
ing Ground 
of  all  Re- 
ligions 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

character  on  the  spiritual  side,  which  uplifts 
duty  by  love.  Conscience  is  the  chisel  by 
which  the  divine  touch  carves  from  the  mar- 
ble of  human  being  the  lovely  statue  of  the 
perfected  soul.  It  is  the  building  upward  and 
outward,  by  good  thoughts  and  good  works, 
from  the  lower  self  into  the  higher,  the  image 
of  God,  the  ideal.  Thus  we  realize,  in  the 
higher  Christianity,  the  ideal  which  was  the 
aim  of  the  Greeks,  but  which  they  achieved 
in  physical  rather  than  spiritual  perfection. 
It  is  for  us  to  know,  to  have,  to  rejoice  in 
both.  Spirit  rules  body,  God  self,  good  evil, 
right  wrong,  in  a  working  and  resultful  opti- 
mism which  is  faith.  Morals  is  the  bed-rock 
of  religion. 

The  geologist  may  not  get  near  to  the 
molten  center  of  this  earth,  or  the  religious 
thinker  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  the  First 
Cause,  but  each  nevertheless  has  sufficient 
field  in  the  working  ground  of  all  mankind. 
In  that  eternal  round,  the  Unknown,  God, 
Humanity,  the  Unknown,  it  is  not  given  us 
to  know  the  infinite  answer  to  the  infinite 
questions,  Whence  .-*  Whither  ?  Why }  —  but 
the  Here,  that  is  our  affair.  And  on  this 
ground  of  morals,  in  the  analysis  of  working 
religion  as  an  art  of  life,  there  is  a  widening 
224 


OF   RELIGION 

agreement  among  all  religions  and  all  sects. 
At  last  Christians  begin  to  learn  that  if  God 
is  our  Father,  and  Jesus  the  Elder  Brother 
to  us  all,  then  we  must  all  be  brothers  one  to 
another — through  Christian  sect  and  non- 
Christian  majority ;  and  to  learn  this  is  to 
make  much  the  essentials  and  to  make  little 
the  differences  of  religion,  to  live  a  true  per- 
sonal life  in  harmony  and  godly  love. 

And  it  is  only  on  this  basis  that  religion 
and  morality  have  meaning.  They  together  The  Uplift 
are  one,  and  make  together  the  supreme  art  °^  ^°^® 
of  life.  The  idea  of  duty,  the  conception  of 
love  —  in  these,  life  flowers.  Herein  the 
fierce  warfare  of  every  man  for  himself  is 
tempered  into  love  in  fellowship,  in  friend- 
ship, race-love.  Herein  the  strongest  pas- 
sion of  the  body  is  redeemed  and  transfigured 
into  love  in  marriage,  sex-love.  Herein  sins 
themselves  are  transfigured  into  stepping- 
stones  that  lead  heavenward,  in  God-love. 
Man  is  religious  in  essence :  on  the  ethical 
idea  all  religion  builds,  on  the  idea  of  spirit- 
uality all  religion  soars,  as  the  cathedral  is 
crowned  by  its  spire.  Duty  and  love — these 
are  feet  and  wings  of  the  man  spiritual.  The 
religion  which  says.  We  cannot  know  God, 
worships  the  race  and  woman  ;  the  religion 
225 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

which  says,  We  do  not  know,  accepts  the 
command  that  man  love  his  neighbor  as  him- 
self. 

There  is  one  confession  to  which  the  Chris- 
The  Limita-  tian,  the  positivist,  the  agnostic  must  alike 
M^S^^  come,  in  negative  agreement  of  human  Hmi- 
tations.  The  Hindoos  rested  the  earth  on 
the  tortoise,  and  the  tortoise  on  the  elephant, 
and  so  on  and  so  on.  But  —  beyond  ?  The 
human  mind  stops  here.  Inspiration  cannot 
tell  it  the  secret,  because  there  is  no  faculty 
which  can  know.  The  Infinite  confounds  us. 
One  of  two  opposites  must  be  true  —  but 
the  human  mind  cannot  conceive  of  either. 
There  must  have  been  beginning  of  Time, 
or  no  beginning.  There  must  be  end  of 
Space,  or  no  end.  There  must  always  have 
been  Matter,  or  Matter  must  have  been  cre- 
ated out  of  nothing.  The  child  asks.  Who 
was  God's  father }  We  ask  the  same  ques- 
tions as  the  child.  For  us  there  is  no  an- 
swer ;  there  can  be  none.  Infinity  is  exten- 
sion of  which  every  point  is  a  center:  the 
finite  mind  rejects  this  as  a  mathematical 
contradiction. 

The  human  mind  cannot  tAink  a  begin- 
ning, or  no  beginning :  it  cannot  tMnk  an 
226 


OF   RELIGION 

end  or  no  end,  Yet  one  of  these  must  be  The  Un- 
true. Eternity,  Infinity,  a  First  or  uncaused  thinkable 
Cause,  it  can  name,  but  it  cannot  conceive 
of  them,  or  their  absence,  or  their  contraries. 
These  be  mysteries.  The  eye  cannot  see 
sound,  neither  can  man  reason  of  things  be- 
yond reason.  That  we  cannot  think  either 
of  two  alternatives,  one  of  which  must  be 
the  truth,  is  a  sufficient  commentary  on  the 
limitations  of  thought,  and  the  final  proof  of 
humility.  Beyond,  reason  goes  not :  here 
the  Christian  rests  his  doubt,  the  unbeliever 
his  challenge.  If  we  cannot  know  God, 
neither  can  we  deny  his  being.  It  is  the 
fool  who  saith  in  his  heart :  There  is  no  God ; 
what  knowledge  hath  he  by  which  he  may 
deny }  The  pantheist  quibbles  with  himself : 
his  Soul  of  Nature  is  not  less  unthinkable. 

Yet  in  these  days  it  is  often  the  wise  man, 
the  unselfish  and  earnest  thinker,  who  can-  Credo  or 
not  truly  say,  "I  believe."  His  credo  has  ^P®^° 
become  spero.  He  will  hope.  He  cannot  by 
searching  find  out  God  :  he  hesitates  to  sur- 
render reason  to  an  elusive,  perhaps  delusive, 
faculty  beyond  reason  :  he  will  only  reason 
about  and  recognize  the  limits  of  his  reason, 
and,  with  hope,  set  himself  to  apply  the  past 
227 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

to  a  present  which  is  making  the  future  — 
whether  the  future  be  his  or  not  his,  infinite 
or  finite.  For  such  a  man  there  can  be  no 
hesitancy  of  fear ;  there  is  no  place  here  for 
the  coward.  The  man  of  science  must  see 
what  his  sight  shows  him.  He  must  beheve 
not  in  Belief  but  in  Truth.  He  must  inquire 
of  facts,  not  threaten  them  with  fear  of  con- 
sequences. Here  true  service  comes  only 
from  that  unshrinking  sight  which  discerns, 
and  that  unfaltering  will  which  asserts,  de- 
spite prejudice  or  tradition,  those  elements 
of  permanent  result  that  are  to  make  the  fu- 
ture. Shrinking  conservatism  may  not  stay 
him ;  it  is  not  for  him  to  bury  his  face  in  the 
darkened  temples  of  the  gods  and  cry  out 
against  the  worshiper  under  the  sunlight  or 
the  starlight  of  the  revealing  heavens.  He 
shall  try  faith,  that  faith  be  found  faithful, 
and  live. 

Indeed,  in  the  wide  sense,  it  is  the  province 

The  Search-  of  the  scientific  investigator  to  assure  faith. 

Faifh"'^^^  He  has  no  fear  lest,  fighting  for  good,  in  line 
with  truth,  he  haply  be  found  fighting  against 
Him  who  is  Giver  of  Good  and  Author  of 
Truth.  There  is  nothing  more  skeptical, 
more  irreligious,  more  essentially  atheistic, 
than  that  religion,  falsely  so-called,  now  pass- 
228 


OF   RELIGION 

ing  away,  which  flings  Nature  in  the  face  of 
God,  which  makes  its  God  illogical,  inhuman, 
ungodly,  a  creator  at  odds  with  his  creation, 
a  contradiction  of  terms.  There  is  nothing 
more  promotive  of  real  and  abiding  faith, 
more  religious  in  binding  men  with  good, 
more  vitally  godly,  than  that  science  which 
presents  one  harmony  of  Nature  and  of  Gos- 
pel, working  together,  through  convertive 
evil,  into  higher  good  ;  which  leads  to  a  re- 
conciling faith  that  when  it  finds  God  finds 
Him  law-abiding,  humane,  truly  divine,  a  logi- 
cal God.  Bravery  is  the  best  evidence  of 
faith. 

Science,  we  hear  over  and  over,  is  skepti- 
cal and  disastrous.  If  it  be  skeptical,  it  is  The  Sane- 
disastrous,  for  no  people  that  believes  not  science 
ever  does  greatly.  It  is  faith  that  moves 
mountains.  But  this  earnest  questioning  that 
seeks  the  True  and  the  Good  in  religion,  in 
morals,  or  in  knowledge,  —  this  is  not  skepti- 
cism, in  the  ill  sense  in  which  the  word  is 
commonly  heard.  Skepticism  is  the  essence 
of  negation.  It  is  the  chronic  condition  of 
corrosive  doubt,  doubt  not  simply  of  God  but 
of  good.  In  the  "religious"  philosophy  that 
gives  evil,  or  its  incarnation,  the  practical 
supremacy  in  life,  it  finds  its  strongest  type. 
229 


THE   ARTS   OF    LIFE 

But  when  Science,  in  a  spirit  not  of  doubt 
but  of  seeking,  brings  to  us  with  her  ques- 
tionings the  strongest  sanction  natural  ethics 
can  receive,  she  brings  to  us  also  new  stimu- 
lus of  faith.  That  sanction  is  the  simple 
fact  of  the  eternity  of  influence.  Every  mo- 
tion alters  in  its  degree  the  relations  of  the 
universe  forever.  In  this  sense  nothing  dies, 
nothing  is  lost.  Responsibility  is  infinite. 
Science  confirms  the  sanction  of  religion  ; 
the  one  approves  what  the  other  has  fore- 
said. 

There  can  be  no  greater  mock  of  a  real 
Fatalism  religion,  a  true  God,  a  living  faith,  than  the 
irreUgious  fatalism  which  finds  its  culmination  on  the 
one  hand  in  the  dull  serenity  of  the  Maho- 
metan devotee,  on  the  other  in  the  lurid  pre- 
destination of  a  Jonathan  Edwards.  The 
logical  result  is  fatal  ease  of  conscience  — 
the  sensuality  of  the  Turk,  or  that  reckless 
indifference  to  unavoidable  sin,  the  dreadful 
results  of  which  among  his  flock  drove  Ed- 
wards from  his  Northampton  parish  after 
"the  Great  Awakening"  had  done  its  awful 
work.  Ever  the  human  soul  revolts  against 
the  metaphysical  chains  which  deny  its  free- 
dom. Predestination  we  know  indeed,  in 
230 


OF   RELIGION 

science,  as  heredity,  environment,  circum- 
stance, which  make  tendency ;  but  tendency 
is  not  all  —  there  is  something  within  which 
can  direct,  convert,  utilize  tendency.  We 
know  it ;  we  feel  it ;  we  build  all  practical  life 
upon  it.  "Sir,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "we  know 
our  will  is  free,  and  there  's  an  end  on  't." 
"  Reconcile  the  foreknowledge  and  the  fore- 
ordination  of  God  with  the  free  will  of  man } 
Your  own  conscience,"  —  answered  Mr. 
Apollo  Lyon  to  the  would-be  Devil-puzzler. 
It  is  this,  in  the  finality,  on  which  all  prac- 
tical religion  is  based. 

In  progress,  much  comes,  much  goes,  much 
remains.  The  old  "  evidences  "  of  the  Chris-  The  old 
tian  faith,  which  through  the  centuries  have  Evidences 
raised  more  doubts  than  they  have  solved, 
give  place  to  a  larger  faith  and  a  wider  hope. 
One  by  one  they  have  gone,  but  in  their 
place  greater  has  come.  The  consensus  gen- 
tiunty  the  majority  vote  for  Christ,  so  to  speak, 
was  an  argument  that  meant  much  until  it 
was  met  by  the  arithmetical  fact  of  the  wider 
vogue  of  the  earlier  Buddha  and  of  the  later 
Mahomet.  The  Christian  who  builded  on 
this  ground  found  it  swept  away  as  sand, 
and  his  faith  with  it.  So  long  as  all  reli- 
gions but  Christianity  were  "heathen,"  — 
231 


Evidences 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

works  of  the  devil,  —  so  long  it  was  evident 
that  the  devil  had  the  better  of  God  in  His 
world. 

But  modern  investigation,  in  the  true  spirit 
The  new  of  science,  has  opened  our  eyes.  We  witness 
the  evolution  of  religion,  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  thought  of  God,  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  conception  of  good,  from  a  lower  to 
a  higher  ethical  standard.  And  evolution 
itself  teaches  us  that  as  all  appetites,  func- 
tions, and  instincts  prefigure  something  in 
the  objective  environment  which  answers  to 
their  subjective  demand,  as  hunger  implies 
food,  and  thirst  drink,  the  eye  light  and  the 
ear  sound,  sex-love  woman  for  man  and  man 
for  woman,  so  there  must  be  answer  to 
man's  spiritual  instinct,  his  appetite  for  reli- 
gion, his  thirst  for  God,  his  desire  for  a 
future  life.  Thus  science  confirms  and 
broadens  faith.  In  all  religions  we  see  God, 
adapting  Himself  through  human  leadership 
to  humankind,  according  to  the  need  of  tribe 
and  time.  In  the  great  books  of  the  great 
faiths  we  read  Gospels  only  less  noble  than 
those  of  our  own  Bible,  the  Book  of  Books. 
Even  in  the  stocks  and  stones  of  the  savage 
we  find  symbols  of  a  Great  Spirit,  a  God 
dimly  seen  by  dim  men.  In  due  time  came 
232 


OF   RELIGION 

the  Christ,  son  of  God,  God  in  man,  divine 
or  human,  to  vouchsafe  to  the  higher  races 
of  mankind  at  once  the  simplest  and  highest 
of  religions,  the  essence  of  all  religion,  in 
whose  Light  we  have  Life. 

So,  also,  the  letter,  "  which  killeth,"  is  no 
longer  the  foundation  of  faith.  A  reverent  The  Use  of 
criticism,  tracing  the  evolution  of  our  reli-  "^^^^^™ 
gion  from  the  fierce  Jahveh  of  the  nomad 
Israelites  to  the  loving  Father  of  all  men, 
has  brushed  away  much  legendary  tradition, 
much  repulsive  teaching  of  a  rude  race,  and 
taught  us  to  reject  the  human  weaknesses  of 
the  writers  and  to  reverence  all  the  more 
the  spiritual  strength  which  has  made  our 
Bible  the  Book  of  Books.  And  with  "  verbal 
inspiration "  has  been  swept  away  also  the 
confusion  of  creeds  built  upon  contradictory 
proof-texts,  erroneous  translations,  and  verbal 
misconceptions ;  the  whole  fabric  of  verbal 
religion  has  indeed  been  whirled  away  into 
thin  air. 

Even  the  miraculous  birth,  the  immaculate 
conception,  which  has  in  our  own  day  been  The  mystic 
carried  yet  a  step  further  as  a  foundation-  ^^'^^^ 
stone  of  one  great  church,  is  seen  in  a  new 
light.     In  the  dim  and  shadowy  days  of  our 
233 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

far  fathers,  before  writing,  every  hero  was 
miraculously  born ;  and  in  later  ages,  about 
Buddha,  as  Founder  of  a  Faith,  centered  the 
very  legends  associated  with  the  birth  and 
childhood  or  our  own  Jesus.  This  discov- 
ery destroyed  nothing.  To  the  true  disciple 
it  confirmed  faith,  because  it  showed  how 
the  ever-recurring  yearnings  of  humanity, 
forming  themselves  into  loving  legends,  wove 
this  wreath  of  miracle  with  which  to  greet 
the  son  of  God,  or  son  of  man,  who  was  to 
bring  God  down  to  man,  to  lift  man  up  to 
God. 

The  miracle  of  this  Birth,  be  it  truth  or  le- 
All  Birth  is  gend,  is  patterned  indeed  by  every  birth,  the 
Miracle  ^^jj^  miracle  of  new  being.  That  the  seed  of 
a  flower,  the  acorn  of  a  tree,  should  contain 
within  its  tiny  self  the  laws,  principles,  and 
tendencies  which  define  it  as  itself,  which 
from  one  or  another  set  of  cells  of  starch  de- 
velop the  simple  blade  of  green  grass,  the 
tasseled  ear  of  corn  with  its  mathematically 
arranged  kernels,  the  white  and  shining  lily, 
the  exactly  patterned  color  of  the  pansy,  the 
parti-colored  tulip,  the  spired  poplar,  or  the 
spreading  oak,  —  this  would  pass  belief  were 
it  not  the  common  experience  of  our  daily 
life.  Said  Linnaeus,  as  he  watched  a  blossom 
234 


OF   RELIGION 

unfold :  "  I  saw  God  in  His  glory  passing 
near  me,  and  bowed  my  head  in  worship." 
So,  too,  the  egg  of  insect  or  of  bird,  —  of  the 
queen  bee,  with  its  passionate  instincts  de- 
veloped in  the  chrysalis;  the  duck,  whose 
young  take  to  the  water  from  their  shells ; 
the  pigeon,  homeing  true  from  fields  far  and 
unknown,  —  each  is  a  mystery  and  a  miracle. 
And  at  last  these  culminate  in  the  final  mir- 
acle of  the  human  life,  —  bodily  form  and 
spiritual  character  fashioned  from  the  parent 
forms  of  generations  and  ages  before,  min- 
gling and  commingling  in  forms  ever  new 
and  ever  old.     All  birth  is  miracle. 

Life,  indeed,  has  two  gates  from  the  un- 
known, and  both  are  miracles.  The  gate  The  Gate  of 
which  opens  on  mysterious  hinges  for  birth  ^®^*^ 
is  patterned  by  the  mystic  gate  of  death.  We 
depart  into,  as  we  came  from,  the  Unknown. 
As  to  immortality,  it  is  not  given  us  to  know. 
The  Christian  minister,  at  the  bedside  of  the 
dying  or  beside  the  grave  of  the  dead,  can 
only  hope.  He  may  not  verify  or  prove. 
And  Paul,  in  that  glorious  outburst  of  reli- 
gious fervor  in  which  the  human  imagination 
reaches  its  highest  flight,  does  not  prove  im- 
mortality :  his  splendid  analogy  falters  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  question,  for  it  is  because 
235 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  spiritual  body  lacks  that  bridge  in  the 
material  life  with  the  natural  body  which  the 
risen  grain  has  in  its  seed  that  the  doubter 
questions.  As  we  tread  in  the  mists  of  morn- 
ing a  great  bridge  suspended  above  a  mighty 
river  and  see  the  curve  of  the  cables  sweeping 
down  from  the  seen  tower,  left  uncompleted 
to  our  vision  in  the  veiling  cloud,  we  scarcely 
need  the  witness  of  returning  travelers  to 
prove  to  us  that  there  is  a  tower  on  the  far- 
ther shore  to  which  the  chain  ascends  in  com- 
pleted curve.  Yet  without  this  evidence  we 
cannot  say  that  analogy  is  proof,  or  confound 
the  doubter  who  says  that  this  may  be  a 
**  cantilever  "  balanced  on  one  tower  only  and 
ending  in  the  mists.  On  this  bridge  of  life, 
over  which  all  must  pass,  and  on  which  there 
is  no  returning,  we  can  but  press  on  to  a  goal 
of  hope. 

Yet  natural  religion  points  to  what  revealed 
The  Resur-  religion  asserts.  The  story  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion, be  it  vision  or  allegory  or  literal  truth, 
voices  and  answers  to  the  great  hope  of  our 
race.  It  is,  in  a  sense,  no  greater  miracle  than 
those  wonder-workings  of  risen  and  ascending 
life  which  we  see  about  us  every  day ;  yet  to 
the  earnest  doubter,  like  questioning  Thomas, 
the  proof  may  not  suffice  for  an  event  so  con- 
236 


rection 


OF   RELIGION 

trary  to  our  experience  of  life.  The  reason 
that  "they  would  not  believe  though  one  rose 
from  the  dead "  is  that  questioning  minds 
would  require  corroboration  and  cumulative 
proof  that  the  witness  of  whom  Jesus  speaks 
in  the  parable  ^^</ risen  from  the  dead.  That 
which  required  most  proof,  they  might  say, 
had  least.  But  though  to  orthodox  believers 
the  Resurrection  may  be  the  central  fact  of 
Christianity,  it  is  not  the  sole  fact,  and  the 
teachings  of  Jesus,  before  the  Crucifixion, 
harmonized  in  our  recognition  of  the  imper- 
fect media  through  which  they  have  come 
down  to  us,  are  in  themselves  a  sufficing  gos- 
pel. And  when  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, whose  mission  was  to  include  within 
Christianity  all  mankind,  cries,  in  confusion 
of  the  Sadducees  who  had  the  same  incer- 
titude as  to  a  future  life  that  appears  in  the 
Old  Testament :  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen, 
your  faith  is  vain.  .  .  let  us  eat  and  drink,  for 
to-morrow  we  die,"  he  limits  Christianity  by 
basing  it  on  a  single  fact  which  many  minds 
cannot  accept,  in  the  cardinal  error  of  the 
sectary  who  asserts  that  if  his  truth  is  not 
the  truth,  there  is  no  truth. 

There  are  two  immortalities  —  one  certain, 
one  possible,  — the  one  of  influence,  the  other 
237 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

The  two  im-  of  identity.  We  know,  for  science  assures  us, 
mortalities  ^^laX  OUT  deeds  live  forever.  Let  us  heed  and 
hope  —  for  the  inspiration  of  both  is  the  same. 
And  if  we  ask  why,  if  human  life  is  immortal, 
animal  life  is  not?  why  the  intelligent  and 
kindly  dog  or  horse,  the  companion  of  man, 
may  not  survive  as  well  as  the  man  brute, 
again  the  answer  is,  it  is  not  given  us  to  know. 
If  there  is  truth  in  the  theory  of  selective  im- 
mortality, that  a  soul  which  earns  spiritual- 
ity earns  also  a  future  life  of  the  spirit,  while 
the  evil  or  the  brutish  may  die,  this  all  the 
more  is  inspiration  and  sanction  for  right 
living. 

The  lesser  miracles  of  the  ministry  are  not 
The  Mira-     without  their  correspondence   in   the  large 
tire  °*  ^^"    i^iracle  of  living.     The  water  made  wine,  be 
it  fact  or  phantasy,  is  not  more  wonderful  than 
the  chemist's  daily  miracle.    An  atom  of  car- 
bon from  our  hearth,  an  atom  of  hydrogen 
from  a  drop  of  water,  an  atom  of  nitrogen 
from  a  particle  of  air,  these  together,  no  more, 
make  the  molecule  of  prussic  acid  which,  by 
another  miracle,  instantly  destroys  life.     An 
atom  of  oxygen  to  each  makes  them  again 
earth,  water,  air  !     So,  too,  the  miracles  of 
healing  are  not  without  witness  in  our  day. 
238 


OF   RELIGION 

Daily  we  see  the  spirit  dominating  the  body, 
working  in  it  evil  or  good,  the  will  command- 
ing the  nerves  and  they  in  turn  the  mus- 
cles, courage  resisting  contagion,  fear  inviting 
cholera,  cowardice  producing  physical  effects 
on  the  eve  of  battle,  a  thought  bringing  the 
blush  to  the  cheek  or  congesting  the  blood  in 
other  parts  of  the  body,  the  spiritual  elevation 
of  the  martyr  defying  pain,  visions  as  of  Our 
Lady  of  Lourdes  stimulating  recovery,  and 
the  mind-cure,  despite  all  vagaries,  doing  real 
service  to  humankind  by  teaching  the  sub- 
jecting of  subordinate  matter  to  supreme 
spirit. 

It  is  indeed  not  as  wonder-workings,  but 
as  exceptions  to  law,  that  miracles  challenge  Miracles  as 
modern  belief.  Early  man,  unknowing  of  ^'^Law^^'^^ 
law,  was  widely  credulous  :  he  saw  the  un- 
seen, spake  with  the  dead,  and  expected 
Deity  to  reverse  nature.  But  credulity  is 
not  belief.  Belief  requires  proof,  and  re- 
views evidence.  We  can  even  reverse  the 
seeming  evidence  of  the  senses.  Incredulous 
at  first  that  the  world  is  round,  that  the  earth 
moves,  that  the  blood  courses  through  our 
bodies,  that  one  form  of  life  is  evolved  by  far 
steps  from  another,  that  the  forces  of  nature 
and  the  sensitivities  of  the  body  are  but 
239 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

modes  of  motion,  man  came  to  belief  in  each 
of  these  seeming  contradictions  because  each 
ranged  itself  at  last  in  line  with  law.  The 
modern  mind  accepts  with  rightful  readiness 
evidence  in  accord  with  "  established  facts  ** 
and  the  observed  order  of  nature,  and  as 
rightly  it  requires  more  and  cumulative  proof 
of  what  is  contrary  to  experience,  a  seeming 
exception  to  law.  But  as  to  this  order  of 
nature,  we  do  not  know  all ;  we  have  much 
to  learn. 

The  very  possibility  of  human  life  depends 
Exceptions  on  two  facts,  quite  exceptional  and  seemingly 
L'fY^^^"*^^^  out  of  the  order  of  nature.  Water  as  it  freezes 
expands  instead  of  contracts  with  cold,  so 
that  ice  floats  and  by  forming  on  the  surface 
protects  the  fluid  beneath,  else  our  rivers 
would  freeze  solid  from  the  bottom,  and  in 
winter  the  flow  of  the  earth's  blood  would 
cease.  Though  oxygen  and  nitrogen  com- 
bine in  wide  range  of  chemical  equivalence, 
air  is  a  merely  mechanical  mixture  of  these 
two  elements,  so  that  the  lungs  absorb  the 
oxygen  freely,  without  the  waste  of  force 
necessary  to  dissociate  it  from  a  chemical 
combination.  The  wonderful  law  of  the  dif- 
fusion of  gases  by  which  the  products  of  com- 
bustion from  our  lungs  and  our  chimneys  are 
240 


OF   RELIGION 

in  turn  harmlessly  re-absorbed  into  the  air 
seems  an  exception  contrary  to  the  great  law 
of  gravitation.  A  Shakespeare,  a  Napoleon, 
an  Edison,  is  an  exception  in  the  order  of 
nature  not  to  be  accounted  for ;  nor  can  any 
lesser  Shakespeare,  the  creator  of  any  liter- 
ature, explain  whence  or  how  his  thoughts 
came. 

The  order  of  nature  is  itself  a  miracle,  a  The  Order 
wonder-working,  and  seems  not  so  only  be-  Miracie^^  * 
cause  we  do  not  think.  It  is  often  above 
and  beyond  sense.  So  the  searcher  for  truth 
may  not  believe  the  miracles  of  the  Bible ; 
he  may  say  with  sincere  judgment  that  they 
are  to  him  not  proven ;  but  he  cannot  deny 
them.  The  Christian  and  the  agnostic  may 
in  this  measure  agree. 

But  what  basis  remains  then  for  "reli-  The 
gion  "  in  such  agreement,  — an  agreement  on  rIi^^o^^^ 
mysteries,  in  an  Origin  forever  unknowable, 
in  a  First  Cause  revealed  without  absolute 
certainty,  in  an  Immortality  which  is  a  hope 
never  proven,  in  a  Gospel  which  partakes  of 
the  fallibility  of  man,  in  a  Christ  who  may  be 
God  and  may  be  man,  in  miracles  and  evi- 
dences which  may  prove  all  or  nothing.  In- 
deed, there  remains  the  essence  of  all  reli- 
241 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

gions,  in  the  simplest,  the  purest,  the  noblest, 
the  highest  form  in  which  religion  has  been 
vouchsafed  to  the  most  spiritual  races  of  man- 
kind. Thou  shalt  love  God  —  or  the  Good, 
O  skeptic !  —  with  all  thy  heart  and  soul  and 
mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  This  is 
the  law  and  the  prophets.  Here  is  broad 
ground  on  which  we  may  agree  with  all  lovers 
of  good,  and  within  which  each  may  work 
out  his  own  beliefs,  provided  he  damn  no 
other's. 

For  belief  itself  is  in  large  measure  a  mat- 
Tempera-  ter  of  temperament,  of  innate  tendency  and 
BeUef^  mental  equipment.     There  are  those  to  whom 

it  is  not  given  to  believe,  however  much  they 
desire  to  do  good  and  to  know  God.  Shall 
the  blind  be  condemned  because  they  see 
not  .-*  A  loving  God  will  not  deny  mercy  to 
His  creatures  whom  He  has  not  endowed  with 
the  gift  of  belief.  The  student  of  science, 
who  is  above  all  a  student  of  the  divine  order, 
develops  his  mental  powers  nevertheless  in 
the  direction  of  proof,  and  God  has  not  per- 
mitted Himself  to  be  proved.  Proof  stops 
short  of  the  First  Cause.  God  is  veiled. 
Let  the  Christian  then  lament  the  limitations 
which  keep  the  man  of  science  on  one  side  of 
the  veil,  but  let  him  not  condemn  the  man 
242 


OF  RELIGION 

nor  impeach  God.  Let  him  regret  imperfec- 
tions, if  he  will,  but  let  him  not  dare  to  pass 
sentence  as  of  God.  On  the  other  hand,  sus- 
pense, not  skepticism,  is  the  attitude  of  sci- 
ence. Reverence  is  its  true  virtue,  denial  is 
its  caricature.  Goethe's  Mephisto  is  the 
spirit  that  denies.  Moreover,  the  man  of 
science,  above  all  men,  knows  the  meaning  of 
art.  He  preaches  the  cultivation  of  habit. 
Let  it  be,  therefore,  his  habit  of  mind  to  cul- 
tivate himself  toward  that  art  of  life  which 
we  call  religion. 

For  science  itself  meets  the  same  limita- 
tions as  religion.  The  problem  of  a  First  Limitations 
Cause,  of  the  beginnings  of  time  and  space  °^  Science 
and  matter,  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  are 
also  its  problems.  No  man  living  ever  hopes 
that  any  human  being  will  ever  see  an 
"atom;"  yet  it  is  absolutely  visible  to  the 
eye  of  faith.  It  is  counted,  sized,  weighed  ; 
it  is  the  foundation  of  scientific  reasoning. 
The  atom,  indivisible,  must  have  size,  yet 
can  have  no  size.  So  also  the  "  ether ;  "  infi- 
nitely tenuous,  it  must  be  infinitely  dense. 
Both  are  contradictions  to  our  sense.  What 
is  true  of  the  infinitely  little  is  true  of  the 
infinitely  great.  The  beam  of  light  which 
243 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

tells  to  the  man  of  science  the  story  of  the 
stars  appeals  to  his  faith  rather  than  to  his 
sight.  Between  the  human  organism  which 
sees,  hears,  smells,  tastes,  and  feels,  and  the 
organism  of  nature,  the  physical  universe, 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  the  vibra« 
tions  which  come  from  one  to  the  other,  the 
angels  of  the  world  physical,  can  be  caught 
and  interpreted  only  by  those  mind-faculties 

—  the  metaphysical,  intellectual,  or  spiritual 

—  which  are  themselves  a  mystery  of  mys- 
teries, a  miracle  of  miracles.  Scientific  rea- 
soning is  in  itself  a  process  of  faith,  building 
bridges  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen. 

Why  then  has  there  been  conflict  between 
Science  science  and  religion  ?     For  two  reasons  — 

J?^^^  ^^^^'  one  of  habit,  and  one  of  essence.  It  is  the 
process  of  the  man  of  science  to  doubt,  to 
question,  to  deny,  to  reject;  thus  only  he 
obtains  his  fine  metal,  Truth.  It  is  the 
method  of  the  professor  of  religion  to  "  be- 
lieve without  question ; "  in  his  habit  of 
mind,  to  question  is  to  deny,  and  denial  is 
the  crime  against  the  Holy  Spirit  which  is 
the  unpardonable  sin.  To  the  man  of  sci- 
ence, this  is  intellectual  dishonesty,  moral 
blindfoldness,  treason  to  Truth,  an  impeach- 
ment of  God.  The  virtue  of  virtues  of  the 
244 


tion 


OF   RELIGION 

one  is  the  vice  of  vices  of  the  other.  Sci- 
ence is  here  in  the  right :  a  real  God,  who  is 
Truth,  must  honor  the  searching  which  He 
has  implanted  in  His  own,  and  the  ministers 
of  religion  who  have  preached  a  gospel  of 
blindness  instead  of  His  Gospel  of  Light, 
these  are  they  who  have  sinned  against  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  Truth, 

But  there  seems  to  be  between  the  faith 
of  science  and  the  faith  of  religion  one  The  Gulf 
abyss,  of  profound  depth,  reaching  to  the  sciencrand 
very  center  of  all  things  and  of  all  thoughts.  Religion 
Science  is  sure,  religion  is  not  sure,  in  the 
continuity  and  exactness  of  the  evidences. 
The  seeker  in  science  finds  that  in  the  physi- 
cal universe  like  causes  produce  like  effects, 
and  he  reads  the  history  of  the  past,  the  con- 
ditions of  the  present,  the  prophecy  of  the 
future,  in  clear,  sure  light.  The  omnipre- 
sent, eternal  force  of  nature  never  fails  in  the 
physical  justness,  exactness,  of  its  effects ;  it 
is  on  this  that  scientific  reasoning  builds  its 
certain  conclusions.  The  man  of  science 
asks  why,  if  religion  is  true,  this  is  not  true 
of  religion  }  Why  does  theology  speak  with 
uncertain  witness  .•*  Why  has  religion  pro- 
duced conflicts,  sects,  wars,  martyrs  }  Why 
has  Christ's  teaching,  if  it  is  the  final  Truth, 
245 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

not  prevailed  in  Christendom  and  among  all 
mankind  ? 

And  we  face  here  also  the  practical  work- 
The  Pro-  ing  problem  that  ever  confronts  man  —  the 
blem  of  Evil  pj-oblem  of  evil.  Men  of  science  will  say 
that  in  science  there  is  no  evil.  Why  then 
this  awful  dilemma  in  religion  ?  If  God  is 
omniscient,  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  why 
does  evil  exist  in  the  moral  world  .?  Why 
should  a  God,  all-knowing,  all-loving,  all- 
powerful,  permit  in  His  world  and  among 
His  creatures,  these  seeds  of  ill.?  Why 
should  there  be  implanted  in  mankind  pas- 
sions, many  and  raging,  to  yield  to  which  is 
the  swift  act  of  a  moment,  but  which  reap 
their  harvest  in  the  misery  of  a  whole  life 
and  in  the  misery  of  lives  to  come  ?  Why  do 
good  motives  produce  ill  ?  Why  are  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  vfsited  upon  the  children  in- 
stead of  upon  the  sinner  ?  Why  does  an 
omnipotent  God  permit  evil  in  conflict  with 
His  good  } 

The  tradition  of   Adam's  fall  is  a  trivial 
Religious      solution   which    common-sense   religion    ac- 
cepts only  as  a  parable.     The  blind  theology 
of  an  Edwards,  building  a  diabolic  ogre  of 
divine  Justice,  which   wreaks   infinite  ven- 
246 


Difficulties 


OF   RELIGION 

geance  as  the  fit  punishment  of  the  rejection 
of  infinite  love,  shutting  its  eyes  and  sealing 
its  lips  against  the  logical  denial  writ  into  this 
contradictory  image  of  God,  offers  but  an 
ostrich-like  solution.  And  the  doctrine,  as 
old  as  the  Manichseans,  as  new  as  the  Chris- 
tian Scientists,  that  evil  or  error  is  that 
which  is  not  good  or  God,  whether  the  doc- 
trine takes  the  form  of  belief  in  a  dual  prin- 
ciple in  the  government  of  the  universe,  or 
of  denial  of  the  reality  of  evil  because  it  is 
not  of  God,  is  not  less  unsatisfying  to 
logical  thought.  The  darkness  is  but  the 
absence  of  light,  the  shadow  conditioned  on 
the  interposition  of  our  earth  itself  before 
the  sun,  our  source  of  light ;  yet  it  is  a  fact 
inherent  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe 
and  the  great  negative  factor  in  each  day's 
life.  To  define  darkness  with  Edwards  as 
produced  by  the  sun,  or  with  the  Manichaean 
as  caused  by  the  earth,  or  with  Eddy  as  non- 
existent because  not  of  the  sun,  is  equally  an 
imperfect  solution.  To  say  that  God,  know- 
ing all,  knows  not  evil,  and  therefore  that 
evil  does  not  exist,  is  to  deny  a  fact  of  life 
with  juggle  of  words.  Men  know  evil  and 
pain  and  darkness ;  if  God  does  not,  then 
men  know  more  than  God,  and  God  is  not 
247 


dent 


THE   ARTS    OF   LIFE 

all-knowing.  Neither  the  In-justice  of  the 
All-good  in  the  Edwards  theology,  nor  the 
Ignore-ance  of  the  All-knowing  in  the  Eddy 
theology,  solves  the  problem  of  evil. 

But  we  have  lines  of  leading.  We  know 
Evil  an  Inci-  that  the  choice  of  good,  as  against  the  temp- 
tations of  evil,  makes  for  good  and  produces 
character.  The  unspeakable  anguish,  through 
five  years  of  isolation  from  all  mankind,  of 
the  living  martyr  on  Devil's  Isle,  the  victim 
of  colossal  and  unmitigated  injustice,  an 
agony  in  itself  evil  and  only  evil,  is  redeemed 
in  the  shining  service  to  justice,  to  his  coun- 
try, to  the  world,  which  the  faith,  the  cour- 
age, the  patriotism,  the  devotion  of  that 
heroic  soul  have  emblazoned  on  the  black 
background  of  an  infamous  wrong  never  to  be 
forgotten  or  forgiven.  We  see  also  that  evil 
is  sometimes  not  in  itself  pain,  but  a  lower 
viewed  from  a  higher  condition,  the  shed 
chrysalis  of  the  caterpillar  seen  from  the 
wings  of  the  butterfly.  The  family  life  in 
the  humble  cottage  or  in  the  tenement  of  the 
slums,  deprivation  as  seen  from  the  richer 
and  fuller  and  freer  life,  has  nevertheless  its 
redeeming  delight.  We  know  also  that  the 
whole  process  of  development,  evolving  good, 
involves  evil.  We  ask  why  God  could  not 
248 


OF   RELIGION 

have  created  perfect  man  in  a  perfect  world, 
and  we  answer  our  question  from  our  daily- 
experience  that  the  highest  result  comes 
from  upward  struggle.  The  mountain-top, 
in  its  fullest  glory,  must  have  achievement. 
The  cloud  of  evil  veils  the  sunshine  of  good. 
Also,  the  man  of  science  is  here  guilty  of 
an  imperfect  generalization.  He  is  himself  Science  has 
sure  only  in  the  elementary  field  in  which  he  ^^^  ^ 
can  fully  know  or  completely  control  all  the 
causes  and  conditions  of  his  result.  Thus 
elementary  chemistry  may  almost  be  ac- 
counted an  exact  science  and  a  certain  art. 
But  where  he  passes  into  complex  condi- 
tions, as  from  inorganic  to  organic  chemistry, 
he  is  no  longer  sure,  for  he  no  longer  knows 
or  controls  all  the  conditions.  A  problem 
of  evil  begins  to  confront  him.  He  starts  a 
process  of  fermentation,  and  his  bread  or  his 
beer  turns  sour.  He  administers  a  drug  to 
the  human  system,  and  the  results  confound 
him.  Thus  doctors,  who  are  men  of  applied 
science,  notoriously  disagree ;  and  the  fading 
conflicts  of  religion  are  not  more  virulent 
than  the  animosities  between  schools  of  med- 
icine. Science  also  has  had  its  conflicts, 
sects,  wars,  martyrs  —  nor  have  its  martyrs 
always  been  killed  by  the  church.  The  Co- 
249 


Science  as 
Discoverer 
and  Inter- 
preter 


THE   ARTS    OF   LIFE 

pernican  view  of  the  universe,  the  undula- 
tory  theory  of  light,  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  —  these  are 
but  a  few  of  the  battlefields  of  science. 

In  very  fact,  science,  like  religion,  is  but 
an  interpreter  of  facts  existent  in  the  uni- 
verse long  before  the  interpreter  existed, 
and  has  been  not  less  slow  and  uncertain 
in  reaching  toward  first  truths.  It  is  only 
within  the  past  century  that  we  have  really 
read  out  from  Christ's  Gospel  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  so  abol- 
ished slavery  ;  it  is  only  within  the  past  gen- 
eration that  we  have  read  out  from  God's 
Nature  the  force  of  electricity,  which  we 
begin  to  find  is  perhaps  the  dominant  force 
of  forces,  and  applied  it  to  human  use. 
Truth  has  not  varied  ;  the  face  of  Nature 
and  of  Nature's  God  remain  the  same,  yes- 
terday, to-day,  and  forever ;  but  man,  the  im- 
perfect instrument  of  perception,  of  interpre- 
tation, has  been  opening  his  inward  eyes  and 
his  unfolding  mind. 

We  come   thus  to  some   light   upon   the 

problem  of  evil.     It  is  the  light  of  law,  the 

mining  Law  j^^  q£   Mature,  a  divine  law,  which  is   the 

essence  of  the  universe.     It  may  be  that  we 

err  in  speaking  of  God  as  omnipotent,  in  the 

250 


Predeter- 


OF   RELIGION 

sense  that  He  is  superior  or  acts  contrary  to 
law.  In  the  nature  of  things,  by  definition, 
two  and  two  make  four,  a  straight  line  is  the 
shortest  distance  between  two  points,  a  cause 
produces  result.  This  nature  of  things  God 
cannot,  or  does  not,  change.  It  is  predesti- 
nation. It  is  within  and  by  means  of  law 
that  the  Great  Law-giver  is  potent,  over  all 
things  material  and  spiritual,  which  proceed 
from  this  law.  And  it  is  the  law  of  His  laws 
that  His  creation  is  not  a  perfected,  but  a 
perfecting,  universe.  We  can  conceive  of  an  A  Perfect- 
earth  without  mountains  and  valleys,  with-  ^^g  Universe 
out  threatening  cliffs  or  yawning  chasms, 
or  treacherous  quagmires,  or  barren  "bad 
lands,"  an  earth  all  an  even  plain  or  undulat- 
ing park  land,  with  fairly  distributed  forest, 
with  showers  at  exact  intervals  feeding  rivers 
that  run  evenly  into  a  stormless  sea,  an  earth 
without  darkness  and  bitter  cold,  or  glare  of 
light  and  scorching  heat,  an  earth  inhabited 
only  by  animals,  the  friends  of  man,  and  by 
perfected  man  himself,  the  conflict  of  the 
camivora  forever  over,  and  all  life  supported 
on  the  spontaneous  fruits  of  the  field,  with- 
out waste  or  loss,  sorrow  or  pain,  disease  or 
death.  But  against  this  harping  heaven  the 
human  imagination  has  always  been  in  revolt. 
251 


THE  ARTS    OF   LIFE 

Somehow,  we  prefer  a  world  which  throbs, 
an  earth  with  mountains  and  valleys,  with 
difficulties  and  dangers,  with  ups  and  downs, 
material  and  spiritual,  in  which  the  throes  of 
birth  are  followed  by  the  pangs  of  death,  and 
life  succeeds.  As  no  mortal  has  ever  designed 
a  new  form  of  leaf  or  flower  that  is  beautiful, 
so  no  mortal  has  ever  designed,  even  to  his 
own  suiting,  a  working  world  without  the  im- 
perfections of  this. 

But  in  this  imperfect  world,  law  itself 
The  Tra-  works  out  evil.  Though  justice  reigns,  in- 
ge  yo  VI  jygtj(,g  exists.  Evil  is  a  fact.  We  cannot 
rid  ourselves  of  the  fact  by  calling  it  a  shadow 
and  a  seeming,  except  as  good  also,  with  all 
things,  is  a  seeming.  The  law  of  gravitation, 
which  binds  the  solid  rocks  together,  dashes 
to  cruel  death  or  yet  more  cruel  death-in-life, 
the  innocent  child  who  toddles  over  the  face 
of  the  cliff.  The  lightnings,  the  winds,  the 
floods  that  keep  the  earth  pure  and  sweet  as 
the  habitation  of  man,  doom  to  disaster  and 
death  the  most  provident  and  the  most  virtu- 
ous. The  tragedy  of  CEdipus,  innocently 
fore-doomed  to  woe  unutterable ;  the  tragedy 
of  Gretchen,  surrendering  self  to  exalting 
love  ;  the  tragedy  of  Tess,  betrayed  by  duty 
itself  into  the  toils  of  lust,  —  these  are  im- 
252 


OF   RELIGION 

mortal,  because  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, such  cruel  facts  repeat  themselves  in 
life.  The  individual  is  crushed,  betrayed, 
doomed,  by  the  very  forces  which  conserve 
the  race. 

Yet  these  are  but  the  spots  on  the  sun's 
face.  The  order  of  nature  is  not,  in  general,  Life  out  of 
cruel.  Life,  indeed,  feeds  on  death ;  man  ^^^^^ 
destroys  life  for  his  own  food,  as  the  animals 
below  him  have  in  their  turn  destroyed.  But 
such  death  is  not  a  cloud  that  foredooms  life 
with  blackening  shadow.  Self-preservation  is 
doubtless  a  controlling  instinct,  but  the  life 
of  the  animal  is  lived  in  hours  of  delight  af- 
ter its  kind.  The  lurid  pictures  of  the  earth 
as  a  great  killing-ground,  in  which  poor, 
hunted  things  dwell  forever  in  terror  of  their 
lives,  is  as  unnatural  a  generalization  as  ta 
judge  human  happiness  from  the  story  of  an 
CEdipus  or  a  Tess.  Races,  classes,  are  happy 
in  their  "station  of  life,"  however  they  may 
lack  those  conditions  necessary  to  give  their 
analyst  his  happiness.  The  last  of  a  dying 
race,  of  man  or  beast,  may  not  in  personal 
being  be  unhappy.  Most  individuals  have  in 
their  lives  more  joy  in  being  than  pain  in 
suffering.  And  few,  even  in  the  most  miser- 
able of  human  lives,  are  without  hope  in  the 
253 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

world.  What  wrecks  of  humanity  have  in- 
deed been  floated  off  the  rocks  by  buoyant 
helpfulness  of  other  men,  and  brought  in 
safety  into  the  haven  of  peace.  Not  evil,  but 
good,  survives. 

When,  therefore,  we  balance  facts,  the  ex- 
The  Bal-  istence  of  evil  in  this  world  is  not  a  negation, 
Faas°^  a  denial,  of  the  goodness  of  God,  though  it 

may  limit  His  omnipotence  of  goodness.  It 
remains  to  the  human  mind  a  problem,  and 
one  of  the  insoluble  problems.  We  come  to 
think  of  it,  in  the  chemistry  of  being,  as  the 
chemist  comes  to  think  of  those  wonderful 
re-agents  which,  from  the  simplest  life-giving 
elements,  combine  atoms  into  a  complex  sub- 
stance, which  may  be  at  once  the  deadly  foe 
of  life  and  the  most  preventive  or  curative  of 
remedies  against  disintegration  and  death. 
Alcohol,  ether,  carbolic  acid,  are  such  sub- 
stances. They  are  the  servants  of  man,  but 
also  they  slay.  The  drunkard  whose  first 
thirst  for  drink  comes  from  the  hospital  med- 
icine, the  patient  dying  upon  the  operating 
table,  the  child,  or  the  suicide,  who  swallows 
from  the  bottle  of  disinfectant,  —  these  vic- 
tims, innocent  or  self-doomed,  as  it  may  be, 
cannot  cause  us  to  forget  the  great  good  that 
has  come  to  humankind  from  the  application 
254 


OF   RELIGION 

of  these  gifts  of  nature,  discovered  by  man  in 
God's  universe. 

Finally,  to  every  man  who  faces  facts,  the 
facts  show  that  the  dominant  power  in  this  The  Domi- 
human  world,  whether  called  God,  or  Law,  R^ghteous- 
or  Fate,  or  Nature,  is  a  power  that  makes  for  ness 
righteousness,  and  that  to  obtain  the  full 
good  of  life,  literally  to  make  the  best  of  it, 
we  must  put  our  thinking,  willing,  and  doing 
in  line  with  that  power.  The  development 
of  life  is  a  moral,  not  an  immoral,  or  an  un- 
moral, development.  There  are  episodes  in 
a  life  when  neither  reason  nor  science  gives 
clear  guiding,  where  to  do  evil  that  good 
may  come  seems  the  wise  course,  —  yet  every 
man  knows  that  these  are  at  worst  excep- 
tions to  the  law  of  life.  To  "go  it  while 
you're  young"  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness 
is  seen  to  be  "a  poor  bargain  with  the  devil." 
Happiness,  in  the  lowest  sense,  is  in  the  long 
run  a  matter  of  morals,  of  morale,  in  the 
highest  sense.  Those  moments  of  infinite 
rapture,  in  the  old-fashioned  novel,  which 
seem  an  eternity,  constitute  as  a  matter  of 
fact  a  very  short  eternity,  and  are  indeed 
but  a  small  part  of  life.  A  happy  life  is  lived 
through   years   of   ups  and  downs,   each  of 

255 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

which  years  has  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
days  of  twenty-four  hours  each.  A  health- 
ful body,  a  content  mind,  an  aspiring  soul, 
make  full  happiness.  If  the  body  is  health- 
ful by  heredity,  a  true  regimen  in  line  with 
"  righteousness  "  keeps  it  so ;  if  by  heredity 
it  is  unhealthy,  the  same  regimen  will  at 
least  better  its  condition,  and  to  that  extent 
induce  happiness. 

The  questions  of  the  origin  of  man  arc  in 
The  practi-  this  reading  "academic."  Whether  for  mil- 
of^Ufe^^^"*  lions  of  years  this  earth,  appointed  among 
myriads  of  stars  for  the  habitation  of  man, 
has  been  a-making  for  him,  under  the  direct 
personal  guidance  of  a  God  in  whose  image 
man  is  made,  or  whether,  under  the  large 
law  which  rules  the  universe,  a  time  has 
come  on  this  earth,  as  it  comes  on  greater 
stars,  when  development  blossoms  into  hu- 
manity, the  fact  remains  the  same,  —  that 
here  is  man,  environed  by  circumstances 
which  in  part  control  him  and  which  in  part 
he  controls.  His  problem  —  and  the  pro- 
blem of  each  of  his  race  —  is  the  same  in 
either  course.  And  this  is  measurably  true 
also  as  to  his  destiny.  We  say  rightly  of 
many  lives  that  they  are  ill  requited,  ill  ad- 
justed, unless  they  are  continued  into  another 
256 


OF   RELIGION 

world,  where  wrongs  of  to-day  may  be  trans- 
lated into  the  eternal  right.  Yet,  if  all  hope 
of  that  future  life  is  put  aside,  we  discern 
clearly  enough  that  the  way  in  this  life  is  *'  to 
make  the  best  of  it,"  and  that  to  go  contrary 
to  rightness  is  to  invite  more  ill.  The  same 
living  which  best  fits  a  man  for  a  life  with- 
out end  best  fits  him  for  a  life  which  ends  in 
this  world. 

But  if  religion  is  true,  why  is  it  not  one  t 
if  Christianity  is  the  Truth,  why  is  the  Truth  why  is  not 
divided  against  itself }     Religion  has  in  fact  ^^e*P°" 
been  too  often  an  antagonism  instead  of  a 
communion.     It  has  been  an  art  of  polemics 
rather   than   of   irenics  :    the    last   word   is 
scarcely  to  be  found  in  the  theological  dic- 
tionaries.    The  American  maiden  who  told 
the  Pope  that  he  must  like  her  country  be- 
cause it  was  the  most  religious  in  the  world 
—  for  it  had  most  "denominations,"  was  not 
without  historic  basis  for  her  notion.     Men 
have  seemed  to  seek  whereon  they  might  dis- 
agree.    Three  great  religions  still  divide  the  The  three 
world.    Buddhism  is  divided  into  a  multitude  nglons^^" 
of  sects,  on  lines  of  division  geographic,  meta- 
physical, ritualistic,  from  the  papalism  of  the 
Grand  Lama  of  Thibet  to  the  reforming  sim- 
257 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

plicity  of  the  truer  followers  of  the  Buddha. 
Mohammedanism  has  its  lines  of  cleavage,  on 
the  genealogies  of  the  Caliph  successors  of 
"  the  Prophet  of  God  ;  "  and  in  the  schools, 
endlessly  subdivided,  of  the  four  great  Imans 
who  have  expounded  the  Koran  ;  and  it  finds 
its  protestant  reformers  in  the  Wahabee 
zealots.  Religion  has  been  indeed  the  blood- 
iest battlefield  of  mankind.  Christianity  has 
warred  against  Islam,  and  not  conquered; 
and  within  itself  is  the  confounding  of  "  the 
peace  of  the  church."  What  witness,  then, 
does  history  bear  to  the  truth  of  religion,  of 
Christianity  itself  ?  Is  it  not  disproof  ?  No, 
for  the  light  is  not  less  light  when  refracted 
into  colors  which  each  man  sees  for  himself. 
The  differences  are  not  in  the  nature  of  God, 
but  in  the  nature  of  man. 

There  are  not  many  Gods,  many  Christs, 

The  real        many  religions.     The  one  God,  most  of  us 

Reunion        believe,  has  developed  through  the  ages  the 

supreme  race  of  man.     But  of  this  race  are 

many  races,  diverse,  with  minds  and  spirits 

of   many  kinds.     The  human  mind  is   one, 

but  its  expression  in  speech,  even  though  it 

may  have  been  one  in  the  beginning,  tends 

to   infinite   variety.      As    men   know   more 

of  speech,  they  come  to  know  each  other's 

258 


OF  RELIGION 

speech  and  to  see,  in  all  speech,  laws  or  forms 
or  words  common  to  all  or  to  many.  Thus 
God,  expressed  to  these  diverse  races  and 
many  minds,  is  and  will  always  seem  of  many 
forms,  seen  under  conditions  which  are  con- 
ditions of  the  seeing,  not  of  the  Seen.  Thus 
doctrines,  or  statements  of  what  each  kind  of 
man  thinks  about  God,  become  the  founda- 
tions of  sects.  And  because  it  is  the  wont 
of  men  to  talk  about  their  differences  rather 
than  about  the  agreements  that  go  without 
saying,  they  build  fences  about  their  own 
fields  of  religion  and  think  of  these,  instead 
of  the  great  and  beautiful  plain  which  under- 
lies them  all.  But  those  of  far  sight  and 
fair  eye  are  coming  more  and  more  to  see 
how  lovely  is  the  land  without  the  fences. 

Christ  brake  bread  and  drank  wine  with 
his  chosen  friends,  with  every-day  bread  and  Sect  Forma- 
wine  of  his  time,  in  that  brave  and  touching  ligations 
scene  of  the  Last  Supper :  from  this  has 
come  the  gorgeous  ceremonial  of  the  Roman 
Mass,  translated  into  the  liturgy  of  the 
Church  of  England  ;  the  doctrines  of  Tran- 
substantiation  of  the  Host  and  the  Blood  ; 
the  separatist  exclusion  of  close  Communion ; 
the  practice  of  excommunication  ;  and  the 
superstition  of  thirteen  at  table.  Christ 
259 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

dedicated  himself  to  his  work,  at  the  hands 
of  another,  with  the  lovely  symbol  of  water : 
from  that  has  come  the  sacerdotal  rite  of 
Baptism,  wrangles  innumerable  over  im- 
mersion and  sprinkling,  over  the  baptism  of 
infants  and  the  doom  of  the  unbaptized,  con- 
fusions of  Anabaptists  and  Pedobaptists,  and 
a  hundred  sectaries  amongst  sects.  Christ 
spoke  of  God  as  his  Father,  and  in  warfares 
over  Trinity  and  Unity,  in  creeds  where 
words  were  used  to  conceal  the  absence  of 
thought,  the  brotherhood  of  man  was  long 
forgotten.  Christ  charged  his  friends  to 
continue  his  work,  and  the  simple  organiza- 
tion which  they  adopted  has  been  made  the 
basis  of  hierarchies,  episcopates,  presbyteries, 
monastic  orders,  and  endless  varieties  of 
church  government,  which  in  strong  forms 
and  in  strong  hands  became  tyrannies,  and  in 
weak  forms  and  in  weak  hands  a  confusion 
of  tongues. 

Against  this  tendency  of  all  religions  to  a 

The  formal  and  physical  crystallization,  it  has  ever 

religious        been  the  mission  of  the  religious  reformer 

to  protest,  in  defense  of  a  more  spiritual  and 

less  conventional  devotion.    So  Christ  against 

the  Pharisaic  Jews,  Buddha  in  Brahmanism, 

Mahomet  with    his    idolatrous    compatriots 

260 


OF   RELIGION 

and  against  a  debased  Judaism  and  Christian- 
ity. In  like  manner,  over  against  this  ex- 
treme and  that  vagary,  there  have  arisen, 
from  time  to  time,  reformers  within  the 
Christian  church,  seeking  to  turn  it  from  spe- 
cific errors  or  to  bring  it  back  to  primitive 
simplicity.  Thus  Paul  among  the  Judaiz- 
ing  Christians.  Thus  Luther.  Thus  Calvin. 
Thus  Edwards.  Thus  Wesley.  Each  in  his 
turn  did  his  great  work  for  God  in  his  world. 
Each  of  these  later  men  in  his  turn  swung 
the  pendulum  too  far  in  his  own  direction, 
and  made  a  new  sect,  "  a  new  wound  in  the 
body  of  Christ,  a  new  rent  in  his  seamless 
garment."  Then  came  the  Friends,  bearing  The  Friends 
testimony  of  the  Inner  Light,  putting  aside 
communion  and  baptism  because  these  had 
come  between  man  and  God,  and  in  the  spirit 
of  the  meek  and  simple  Christ,  seeking  to 
dwell  at  peace  with  all  men,  in  the  simplest 
of  religious  democracies.  These  were  the 
true  individualists.  But  their  very  contrast 
of  simplicity  became  a  form  ;  they  too  became 
a  sect,  persecuted  even  unto  death  by  other 
sects.  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike  ;  and  no 
sooner  were  they  crystallized  by  this  outward 
pressure  into  a  definite  church  body  than 
they  too  "  split,"  on  the  rock  of  the  Trinita- 
261 


THE  ARTS    OF   LIFE 

rian  controversy,  into  orthodox  and  Hicksite. 
But  to  all  Christians  the  Friends  brought 
a  true  thought,  which  has  been  a  leaven 
throughout  all  the  churches. 

Within  the  nineteenth  century  there  have 
New  Sects  not  been  lacking  new  sects,  seeking  each  in 
its  own  way  to  bring  back  the  church  to 
what  the  sectaries  sincerely  believe  to  be  a 
true  faith  or  form.  The  Millerite  delusion 
overswept  the  whole  country,  and  numerous 
bands,  clothed  only  in  ascension  white,  waited 
again  and  again,  on  days  specified  only  to  be 
postponed,  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord. 
The  Mormon  leader  of  this  century,  like  the 
Mahomet  of  a  millennium  ago,  organized  a 
new  church  on  a  new  revelation,  a  super- 
structure on  Christian  foundations.  The  vota- 
ries of  both,  whatever  the  leaders,  were  sin- 
cere believers,  and  found  in  their  faith  a  true 
religion.  The  C/inst-ia.ns,  so-called,  sought 
to  bring  back  Christianity  to  Christ.  The 
Abolitionists  found  a  religion  in  their  holy 
cause.  The  Christian  Scientists  of  to-day, 
emphasizing  the  healing  power  associated  in 
the  Gospels  with  Christ,  build  upon  a  curious 
mixture  of  metaphysics  and  theology,  a  prac- 
tical working  religion,  with  a  devotional  ser- 
vice of  primitive  simplicity,  which  preaches 
262 


OF   RELIGION 

a  true  gospel  of  mental  and  spiritual  disci- 
pline as  the  conditions  of  bodily  health,  and 
has  brought  real  Christlikeness  to  many 
thousands  of  disheartened  and  perplexed 
members  of  the  Christian  church. 

It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  all 
men  will  come  to  think  alike  about  God,  or  Men  will  not 
about  Christ,  or  about  religion.  As  long  as  *^^"^  *^^^® 
there  are  differences  in  the  form  and  doctrine 
of  religion,  the  Roman  church,  or  its  equiva- 
lent, giving  to  certain  kinds  of  people  a 
richly  symbolized  and  pictureful  expression 
of  religion,  relieving  them  of  individual  pro- 
blems by  furnishing  priestly  interpreters  of 
infallible  omniscience,  may  always  exist,  for 
it  meets  one  great  human  need.  The  religion 
of  individual  relationship  with  God,  of  indi- 
vidual struggle  and  crisis,  meets  other  needs, 
and  is  expressed  in  sects  according  as  one 
or  another  feature  or  doctrine  of  the  reli- 
gious life  is  emphasized.  Thus  the  Catholic 
church,  one  and  indivisible,  exists  coordinate 
with  individualist  sects,  reformed  and  always 
re-forming,  —  and  this  difference  may,  by  the 
nature  of  the  human  mind,  continue,  perhaps 
always,  to  exist.  But,  beyond  all  varieties  of 
faith  and  of  form,  there  is  a  unity  in  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  reverent  of  its  divine 
263 


THE   ARTS   OF  LIFE 

origin,  in  which  more  and  more  all  faiths  and 
all  forms  agree  as  the  essence  of  religion. 
"Religions  may  die;  religion  lives." 

The  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  at 
Jerusalem,  built  about  the  rock  in  which,  as 
The  Church  Greeks,  Armenians,  and  Romans  alike  be- 
Sepukhre^  lieve,  the  body  of  Jesus  was  entombed,  con- 
tains within  its  walls  chapels  for  each  of 
these  orders  of  Christians.  It  has  been  a 
sad  epitome  of  the  history  of  the  church  of 
Christ.  Confusion  of  tongues,  diverse  ritu- 
als, conflicting  holy  days,  din  of  discordant 
preachers,  babble  of  gossip  and  contention, 
treachery  and  violence,  have  culminated 
more  than  once  within  Holy  Week  itself  in 
murder  and  massacre,  until  the  soldiers  of 
the  infidel  Turk  have  been  called  in  to  pre- 
vent war  among  the  Christian  disciples  of 
the  Prince  of  Peace,  in  the  very  Holy  City 
of  the  Jews  where  Christ  is  not  yet  owned 
because  his  professed  disciples  know  him 
not.  But  it  is  also  the  parable  of  the  true 
and  possible  church,  in  which  each  form  of 
religion  may  have  its  appointed  place,  but 
under  whose  over-arching  dome  all  Chris- 
tians may  unite  in  listening  to  the  risen 
Truth,  while  Jew  and  Gentile,  believer  or 
agnostic,  may  find  in  the  peace  within  some- 
264 


OF   RELIGION 

thing  that  answers  to  their  spiritual  need  and 
nearer  brings  each  to  the  divine. 

If  this  religion,  the  rehgion  of  Christ,  the 
religion  which  accepts  Christliness  in  all  Failures 
faiths  and  forms,  though  it  be  for  all  time  churches 
and  all  times,  must  change,  like  all  expres- 
sions of  the  divine  through  the  human,  in  its 
expression,  its  organization,  its  methods,  to 
conform  with  the  conditions  and  answer  the 
demands  of  each  age,  of  each  generation,  of 
each  type  of  mind  or  kind  of  soul,  meeting 
with  the  eternal  verities  the  needs  of  the 
passing  hour,  it  behooves  Christians  to  look 
facts  in  the  face  and  learn  where  and  why 
churches  have  failed.  When  the  holy  day 
becomes  merely  a  holiday,  not  for  re-creation 
but  for  amusement  only ;  when  neither  the 
Bible  nor  other  spiritual  literature  gives  gos- 
pel to  men,  but  the  Sunday  newspaper  takes 
their  place ;  when  church  meetings  cannot 
withstand  the  competition  of  the  cheap  thea- 
tres in  our  cities  or  overcome  the  inertia  of 
country  life  ;  when  heads  of  churches  are  no 
longer  men  of  religion  but  of  affairs,  and  a 
spiritual  teacher  may  be  cast  out  because  he 
does  not  draw  to  the  pews  a  "paying"  con- 
gregation; when  churches  have  no  longer 
265 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  religious  vitality  in  their  public  opinion 
to  reform  or  to  discipline  those  who  pay  high 
prices  for  pews  and  hold  high  place  in  church 
politics,  but  are  anti-Christ  in  daily  life; 
when  worship  becomes  ritual  and  prayer  a 
form ;  when,  in  short,  the  church  is  no  longer 
religious,  —  there  is  no  longer  answer  within 
the  churches  to  that  need,  dwelling  within 
every  soul,  however  dormant,  for  the  things 
of  the  spirit.  For  "man  is  a  religious  ani- 
mal "  and  craves  spiritual  food.  No  plea  of 
"lack  of  time  "  can  condone  the  failure  of 
the  churches,  for  in  this  hurried  world  of 
our  day  each  man  works  fewer  hours  to  earn 
a  better  living  than  in  the  olden  times  "  of 
leisure,"  and  has  still  "  all  the  time  there  is." 
It  is  still  a  matter  of  choice.  The  dried 
husks  of  religion  will  never  invite  nor  satisfy 
the  hungry  souls  that  flocked  to  hear  a  Phil- 
lips Brooks,  for  whom  time  was  never  lack- 
ing, morning,  or  noon,  or  night,  to  seek  spir- 
itual food  at  his  hands. 

It  may  be  that  religion,  like  government. 
The  Differ-    has  suffered,  in  this  period  of  transition,  from 

entiation  of   ^^iQ  lapse  of  individualist  relations  which  has 

Functions  ■,  r 

followed  the  development  of  great  organiza- 
tions.    The  chief  of  a  state,  the  head  of  a 
266 


OF   RELIGION 

great  industry,  no  longer  knows  citizens  and 
workers  in  their  individual  relations,  but  di- 
rects the  mass.  The  shepherd  of  a  thousand 
sheep  cannot  know  his  own  and  call  each  by 
its  name.  The  preacher  who  attracts  a  thou- 
sand hearers  into  a  great  church-house  can- 
not be  the  pastor  of  a  thousand  souls.  The 
Pope,  as  the  head  of  the  great  Roman  hier- 
archy, dispenses  religion  as  it  were  at  whole- 
sale. The  Protestant  bishop  is  an  executive, 
no  longer  distinctly  a  godly  man,  but  a  man 
of  the  world,  of  affairs,  whose  conversation  is 
not  of  religion  but  of  everything  else.  To 
this  extent,  the  church  has  recognized,  some- 
what to  the  bewilderment  of  its  people,  the 
differentiation  of  functions  or  of  duties  which 
has  developed  elsewhere  in  modern  life. 

But  few  Protestant  churches  have  followed 
the  example  of  Plymouth  Church  in  provid-  Pastor  and 
ing  a  pastor  as  well  as  a  preacher.  The  "  min- 
ister of  religion  "  must  be  orator,  organizer, 
executive,  spiritual  adviser,  and  comforter, 
in  one.  But  to  few  men  is  it  given  to  be  all 
these  :  Phillips  Brookses  are  rare.  The  Ro- 
man church  with  its  superb  organization  has 
more  availed  itself  of  this  principle  of  differ- 
entiation. The  Puritans  of  New  England 
had  their  preacher  and  their  teacher  for  each 
267 


Preacher 


The  true 
Church  of 
the  Living 
Christ 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

church.  When  a  church  committee  "calls'* 
a  new  man,  who  will  "fill  the  pews  "  and  be 
"heard  of  in  the  newspapers,"  and  disre- 
gards character  and  the  quality  of  spiritual 
sympathy,  expecting  from  him  that  which 
he  cannot  give,  it  commits  a  double  wrong. 
And  when  the  theological  seminaries,  fen- 
cing out  men  of  large  spirituality  by  narrow 
creeds,  and  by  unwise  beneficences  inviting 
weaklings,  spiritually  and  otherwise  unfit,  to 
secure  a  living  in  the  church,  send  men  out 
to  strangle  struggling  churches  at  home  or 
to  misrepresent  Christianity  and  misunder- 
stand paganism  in  the  missionary  field,  the 
church  is  handicapped  with  a  burden  no 
other  modern  organization  carries. 

A  live  and  life-giving  church  must  offer  to 
men  a  living  Christ,  whose  **  second  coming  " 
is  visible  in  the  lives  of  disciples  in  whom 
his  spirit  is  ever-present.  It  proves  itself  by 
doing  the  Master's  work,  fulfilling  in  its  day 
his  mission  to  men.  A  church  of  Christ 
should  create  a  Christ-like  environment  for 
those  within  its  fold,  helping  these  to  be 
Christians  in  e very-day  life,  and  should  offer 
in  its  members  a  Christ-like  example  to  those 
without,  winning  those  to  become  Christians. 
In  such  an  environment,  each  disciple  is  in- 
268 


OF  RELIGION 

spired  to  discipline,  to  devotion,  to  achieve- 
ment toward  likeness  with  Christ,  and  out  of 
it  should  come  the  ideal,  yet  to  be  realized, 
of  the  Christian  state.  The  primitive  church, 
the  Pilgrim  fathers,  the  pioneer  reformers  in 
each  Puritan  movement  before  it  convention- 
alized into  sect,  constituted  literally  a  band 
of  brethren  in  the  bond  of  Christ,  a  spiritual 
family,  known  each  of  all  by  his  name,  united 
in  personal  intimacy  as  well  as  by  common 
purpose,  having  all  things  in  common  so  far 
as  necessary  to  respond  to  spiritual  or  phy- 
sical need,  knowing  no  distinction  of  class 
within  and  reaching  out  to  welcome  into 
communion  men  of  every  class  without,  creat- 
ing thus  a  Christian  environment,  a  possible 
millennium,  in  which  outward  circumstance, 
however  hard  the  physical  lot,  ministered 
unto  inward  peace.  The  confessional  of  the 
Roman  church,  the  crude  relations  of  the 
Sunday-school  teacher,  the  formal  visitation 
of  "  the  minister,"  are  sorry  substitutes  for 
this  heart-to-heart  relationship,  the  touch  of 
soul  with  soul,  possible  among  such  bands  of 
disciples,  in  a  sympathetic  environment,  by 
help  of  which  religion  is  made  applied  ethics 
and  the  spirit  is  enabled  to  withstand  in  the 
struggles  of  daily  life. 

269 


Church 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

It  is  natural  that  there  should  be  "  rites  " 
Rites  of  the  of  the  church,  as  of  other  organizations. 
Every  society  accepts  or  initiates  its  new- 
comers or  novices  with  more  or  less  of  cere- 
mony, receives  some  formal  enrollment  or 
pledge,  and  holds  festivals  of  communion  or 
of  commemoration.  As  the  mystic  gates 
from  Eternity,  through  which  the  spirit  incar- 
nated in  body  makes  entrance  and  exit,  open 
and  close,  in  birth  and  death,  it  is  the  proper 
office  of  religion  to  give  wel-come  to  the  ar- 
riving and  God-speed  to  the  departing  soul,  in 
baptismal  and  funeral  rites  ;  and  the  wedlock 
of  man  and  woman,  from  whose  union,  the 
foundation  of  the  home  and  of  human  soci- 
ety, is  to  come  offspring  of  new  life,  should 
also  have  sanction  from  the  church  as  a  part 
of  the  divine  order.  But  the  churches,  bid- 
den to  seek  and  to  save  all  men  and  to  rejoice 
in  the  faith,  have  ever  committed  the  dull 
and  deadening  error  of  making  entrance  or 
"  confirmation  "  not  a  dedication  but  a  defini- 
tion, profession  not  of  desire  to  live  the  Christ- 
life  but  of  intellectual  belief  in  complex  and 
contradictory  creed,  fencing  out  more  than  it 
gathered  in  ;  of  converting  the  memorial  sup- 
per from  a  feast  to  which  all  are  bidden  into 
a  sacerdotal  ceremony  excluding  would-be 
270 


OF   RELIGION 

guests ;  of  marking  the  exit  of  the  believer 
into  eternal  life  with  trappings  of  woe  and 
lamentations  of  penitential  grief.  Christ  in-  Fences  of 
vited  the  multitude  to  flock  to  him  on  the  ^^*^^^ 
open  hillsides  of  Judea ;  his  ministers  raise 
barbed-wire  fences  of  creed  and  catechism 
even  against  the  tender  lambs  who  would 
seek  shelter  in  his  arms.  The  subtleties  of 
the  Nicene  and  the  anathemas  of  the  Atha- 
nasian  creed,  even  the  phantasmagoria  of  the 
simpler  Apostles'  Creed,  so  called,  the  **  thirty- 
nine  articles  "  and  the  "  shorter  catechism," 
overlaid  upon  the  religion  of  Christ,  perplex 
and  repel  the  thoughtful  and  candid  soul,  and 
condemn  the  pulpit,  bound  by  conscience  to 
expositions  against  which  conscience  revolts, 
to  verbal  dexterities  and  logical  evasions 
which  are  both  irreligious  and  immoral. 

The  creeds  and  articles  of  the  sects  are  not 
the  only  survivals  from  a  dead  past  which  Supersti- 
afflict  the  church  and  must  pass  away.  Sacri-  *^P^®  ^®^*" 
fice,  ceremonial,  intercession,  have  been  the 
vicarious  exercises  of  religion  by  which  a 
priestly  class,  from  medicine-man  to  Roman 
priest,  came  between  men  and  God.  Fear, 
lording  the  savage  mind  and  super-stitious 
into  our  own  day,  imaged  a  God  of  Wrath 
and  Death,  whose  anger  was  to  be  appeased 
271 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

by  taking  life  —  the  slaughter  of  enemies,  the 
sacrifice  of  children,  the  burnt-offerings  of 
flesh  —  and  ungrudgingly  paid  taxes,  in  blood- 
money  or  tithes,  for  hire  of  those  who  could 
ward  off  His  terrors.  For  to  Ignorance  the 
unusual  in  Nature  —  the  storm,  the  flying 
comet,  the  stroke  of  death  —  is  the  striking 
fact,  unmindful  as  it  is  of  the  sunshine  and 
the  starlight  in  which  Nature  usually  abides 
and  which  suggests  in  the  reflecting  mind 
the  smile  of  a  God  of  Love  and  Life.  To  us 
it  is  not  waste,  but  use,  that  pleases  God  ; 
sacrifice  gives  place  to  service.  The  abnega- 
tion of  monks,  as  St.  Simon  on  his  pillar,  or 
he  who  in  the  Russian  Lavra  lived  his  useless 
days  immured  in  earth  to  his  neck,  is  no 
Priestcraft  longer  religious.  That  power  of  the  priest- 
hood, the  tool  of  statecraft,  to  invoke  destruc- 
tion of  the  disobedient,  as  when  Moses  is 
said  to  have  punished  the  democratic  revolt 
of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram  by  causing 
them,  "even  to  their  little  ones,"  to  be  swal- 
lowed up  by  the  earth,  is  passing  out  of  human 
belief,  and  with  it  "  the  forgiveness  of  sins  " 
by  a  vicarious  absolution.  So,  too,  that  view 
of  prayer  which  makes  it  a  special  appeal  to 
Deity  to  abrogate  His  Laws  in  our  favor  or 
against  our  adversaries,  and  with  it  will  pass, 
272 


OF   RELIGION 

let  us  hope,  the  habit  of  taking  His  name  in 
vain  in  so-called  prayer  to  expatiate  upon  and  The  Mock- 
explain  the  happenings  of  the  day  or  to  parade  p^y^j. 
"  the  finest  prayer  ever  addressed  to  a  fashion- 
able audience  "  or  the  weary  waste  of  words 
of  the  prayer-meeting  Pharisee.  When,  in 
the  Mexican  revolution,  the  revolutionists, 
under  the  white  banner  of  Our  Lady  of 
Guadaloupe  and  the  "powers  ordained  of 
God,"  with  the  sacred  image  of  Our  Lady 
of  Los  Remedios,  looked  to  this  same  "  Mo- 
ther of  God"  to  invoke  victory  for  each 
against  the  other;  when,  in  the  Cuban  war, 
Catholic  priests  and  Protestant  ministers  on 
either  side,  American  and  Spanish,  vied  in 
adjuring  their  common  God  of  peace  to  over- 
whelm His,  meaning  their,  enemies;  when  a 
community  beseeches  the  Lord  of  Righteous- 
ness to  "  direct  and  prosper,  for  the  safety, 
honor,  and  welfare  of  His  people  all  the  con- 
sultations "  of  a  body  to  which  it  has  sent  an 
unrighteous  representative ;  when  a  church 
begs  the  Law-giver  of  Nature  to  "restrain 
these  immoderate  rains  "  and  "  send  us  sea- 
sonable weather," —  then  prayer  becomes  a 
mockery,  provoking  the  inward  derision  even 
of  the  most  religious,  and  is  no  longer  a  reli- 
gious exercise. 

273 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

But  despite  perversions  of  rites  and  of  reli- 
The  Exer-  gious  observances,  the  exercises  of  religion 
ligkm°^  ^®"  must  remain  a  part  of  life  so  long  as  the 
spiritual  nature  remains  a  part  of  man.  It  is 
still  true  that  human  beings  need,  and  are 
likely  always  to  need,  means  of  spiritual  ex- 
pression and  communion  which  shall  satisfy 
the  hunger  of  the  soul.  The  exercise  of  reli- 
gion implies  food  and  regimen.  The  spiritual 
man,  like  the  physical  man,  needs  nourish- 
ment and  discipline,  aids  internal  and  exter- 
nal, to  assure  wholeness  of  life.  What  the 
great  apostle  means  by  faith  and  works,  the 
uplifting  of  the  soul  toward  the  heights  as 
well  as  the  daily  toiling  on  the  plain,  are 
necessary  parts  of  the  religious  life.  Service, 
worship,  prayer,  are  natural  means  of  spirit- 
ual development.  For  service  only,  the  gos- 
pel of  works,  that  love  and  duty  towards  our 
neighbor  which  is  the  best  fulfillment  of  love 
and  duty  toward  God,  though  the  practical 
side  of  religion,  is  not  enough.  Mere  altruism 
is  not  all.  Man,  as  a  social  being,  craves 
expression  in  common  of  his  religious  or  ethi- 
cal aspirations,  as  in  public  worship,  as  well 
as  individual  uplifting,  as  in  private  prayer. 

As  in  social  celebration,  or  on  political  oc- 
casion, men  gather  for  the  expression  of  com- 
274 


OF  RELIGION 

mon  thought  or  aim,  hearing  together  the  Church  Lit- 
inspiring  thoughts  written  aforetime,  join-  ^^^les 
ing  in  song,  renewing  fidelity  to  their  com- 
mon cause,  gaining  new  inspiration  from  the 
winged  words  of  an  "  orator  of  the  day,"  so 
religion  answers  a  like  need  in  a  like  way, 
developing  this  natural  "  order  of  exercises  " 
into  rich  liturgy,  or  confining  it  to  Puritan 
simplicity.  When  men  are  not  repelled  by 
dry  form  and  rigid  creed,  but  are  offered 
the  bread  of  righteousness  and  the  water  of 
life  that  answer  to  the  spiritual  hunger  and 
thirst  in  every  man,  it  is  not  duty  that  drives 
them  to  church  but  desire  that  speeds  them, 
as  a  lover  to  his  beloved.  To  the  feast  of 
the  spirit  all  men  come  gladly,  if  they  are  but 
rightly  bidden  ;  religion  need  hold  no  second 
place  after  business,  politics,  society,  amuse- 
ment. To  Phillips  Brooks,  preaching  in 
Trinity  Church  at  noon-time.  Wall  Street 
flocked. 

The  great  preacher  has  always  his  mis- 
sion and  his  hearers,  and,  though  from  the  Preaching 
pulpit  of  sect,  he  preaches  to  the  church 
catholic,  not  theology  but  religion,  not  doc- 
trine but  devotion,  "not  creed  but  Christ." 
It  is  not  given  to  all  preachers  to  be,  nor  to 
all  hearers  to  hear,  a  Beecher  or  a  Spurgeon, 
275 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

yet  men  have  only  to  be  awakened  by  the 
enthusiasm,  the  God-in-us,  of  a  religious  re- 
form or  the  force,  too  often  crude  and  fleet- 
ing, of  a  "  revival  "  of  religion,  to  "  crowd 
the  churches  "  of  humblest  pulpits.  And  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  every  preacher 
of  righteousness,  from  platform  as  from  pul- 
pit, is  to-day,  as  of  old,  a  prophet  of  God,  aid- 
ing in  the  development  of  character,  personal 
or  national,  toward  the  spiritual  life.  The 
spoken  word  kindles  as  the  written  word  does 
not,  and  every  man  is  the  better  for  join- 
ing in  the  assembling  of  the  people  together, 
with  uplift  of  common  rejoicing,  in  "  psalms 
Spiritual  and  hymns  and  spiritual  songs."  In  the 
Songs  richer  forms  of  public  worship,  noble  music, 

art,  and  architecture  perform  their  splendid 
part  as  accessories  of  religion,  but  are  a  poor 
substitute  for  it  when  they  become  the  idols 
of  the  church.  As  for  doctrine,  whereon 
men  agree  to  disagree,  and  the  study  of  the 
scriptures  in  its  light,  it  may  be  that  this  will 
become  the  function  of  smaller  organizations 
of  fellow-believers  within  the  greater  church, 
as  chapels  in  a  great  cathedral,  in  whose 
class-rooms  the  teacher  of  righteousness  ex- 
pounds to  men  like-minded  with  himself  their 
view  of  truth. 

276 


OF   RELIGION 

The  seeker  after  God,  the  student  of  the 
spiritual  life,  who  obtains  inspiration  in  the  Prayer 
common  joy  and  instruction  from  his  spirit- 
ual teacher,  needs  not  the  less  the  private  aids 
of  prayer  and  meditation.  As  the  thought  of 
God  changes  from  a  Boss  or  Joss  to  be  pla- 
cated and  besought  for  favors,  to  a  Divine 
Power  ruling  the  universe  by  laws  of  right- 
eousness, there  comes  a  like  change  in  the 
thought  of  prayer.  True  prayer,  whether  in 
speech  or  in  silence,  public  or  private,  is  a 
communing  with  the  divine,  a  meditation  on 
divine  knowledge,  a  recognition  of  divine 
laws,  an  aspiration  toward  divine  being,  rais- 
ing the  soul  into  active  harmony  with  the 
divine  order,  and  is  in  this  sense  the  more  an 
active  part  of  religion  as  the  vital  relation- 
ship of  each  soul  with  the  divine  is  recog- 
nized as  the  essence  of  religion.  The  office 
of  prayer  is  not  to  beg  God  to  stoop  to  men, 
but  to  uplift  men  toward  God. 

Both  in  public  worship  and  private  medita- 
tion, man  finds  spiritual  food  in  the  sacred  Sacred 
literature  of  the  past  and  of  the  present,  —  Books 
in  the  reflections  of  the  divine  thought  in 
our  own  Book  of  Books,  seen  not  as  infallible 
and  perplexing  dogma  but  as  the  record  of  a 
religious  yet  errant  race,  in  the  Bibles  of 
277 


THE  ARTS   OF  LIFE 

Other  religions,  in  the  holy  books  of  all  times, 
in  the  uplifting  literature  of  great  poets  and 
great  thinkers,  in  all  scriptures  that  make  for 
good.  These  are  the  seed-thoughts  which, 
germinating  in  the  meditations  of  the  devout 
mind,  produce  the  flowers  and  fruits  of  spirit- 
ual blessing.  And  not  least  the  contempla- 
Nature  tion  of  Nature  and  the  study  of  its  law,  as 
developed  in  science,  in  which  shines  out 
the  order  and  law  of  divine  mind,  are  dis- 
tinctly, to  him  who  sees  and  reads  aright,  an 
exercise  of  religion.  For  there  is  no  vista 
opening  more  directly  toward  the  conception 
of  a  pre-ordered  development  under  divine 
thought  than  that  which  sees  the  evolution 
of  the  material  world  from  nebulous  "star- 
dust  "  into  suns  and  planets,  becoming  in 
our  own  earth  the  home  of  life,  developed  by 
the  wonderful  principle  of  natural  selection 
at  last  into  man,  paramount  through  mind, 
with  whose  advent  there  came  newly  into 
action  the  principle  also  of  ethical  selection, 
and  who  began  to  coordinate  and  modify 
and  conquer  Nature  by  mind,  to  compass 
the  earth  and  set  bounds  to  merely  natural 
forces,  until  Nature  is  no  longer  the  lord  of 
life,  but  life  the  lord  of  Nature. 


278 


OF   RELIGION 

This  we  come  to  see  at  the  last  —  that  the 
godly  life,  the  Christian  life,  the  religious  The  godly 
life,  may  be  lived  in  sincere  unity  amidst  and  ^^^® 
amongst  all  these  diversities  of  theological 
doctrine  and  ceremonial  expression.  The 
Fatherhood  of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man 
in  Christ,  are  doctrines  on  which  all  Chris- 
tians agree,  but  there  is  a  still  wider  basis  of 
agreement  on  which  also  non-Christians  may 
stand.  The  goodly  life  is  the  godly  life.  Right 
living  is  at  once  the  condition  and  the  aim  of 
a  true  religion.  We  hear  talk  of  the  need  of 
a  new  religion.  But  we  have  only  to  practice 
the  old.  Freed  from  the  accretions  and  con- 
ventionalities of  doctrine  and  of  form  that  are 
part  of  a  dead  past,  the  barnacles  of  the  cen- 
turies, the  old  religion  is  found  to  suffice  abun- 
dantly for  the  new  times.  "  Do  I  think  Chris- 
tianity a  failure .?  —  I  think  it  has  not  been 
tried  !  "  said  the  great  Jewish  rabbi.  To  live 
like  Christ  has  been  throughout  the  Christian 
centuries  a  sufficing  religion.  Wars  have  been 
fought  over  definitions  of  God ;  ceremonial 
usages  have  been  evolved  from  Christ's  sim- 
plest acts  ;  doctrines  diverse  and  contrary  have 
been  read  into  His  words  as  the  basis  of  ana- 
themas, —  but  it  is  the  life  of  the  Christ,  in 
its  simplest  teaching,  that  has  been  the  suffi- 
279 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

cient  model  for  all  time.     The  way  of  the 
Christ  is  still  the  way  of  life. 

To  live  the  Christ-life  amid  the  complexities 
"  What  and  perplexities  of  modern  living  is  indeed  no 
would  Jesus  ga^sy  endeavor.  The  question,  "  What  would 
Jesus  do  ? "  is  sometimes  easier  asked  than 
answered.  We  wish,  for  instance,  to  feed  the 
hungry  but  not  to  promote  pauperism  — and 
so  we  must  have  our  charity  organization  so- 
cieties, and  as  an  act  of  charity  must  refrain 
from  an  act  of  love.  We  seek  to  uplift  our  fel- 
lows by  abolishing  industrial  slavery  and  or- 
ganizing free  labor,  but  not  to  develop  a  new 
despotism  of  trade  unionism.  We  must  think 
not  only  of  the  motive  but  of  the  effects 
of  what  we  mean  to  be  Christ-like  actions.  It 
requires  indeed  wide  vision  to  apply  the  prin- 
ciple of  guidance  that  we  must  work  in  line 
with  the  power  that  makes  for  righteousness, 
the  work  of  good  —  and  yet  the  Christ-life  is 
the  key  to  our  living  as  to  all  living. 

And  when  the  Christ-life  is  simply  seen, 
Christ-like-    and   its   teachings   simply  read,   it  becomes 
ChristSnhy^  known  to  us  that  this  life  and  these  teachings 
are  a  Bible  of  which  there  have  been  many 
translations,    however    imperfect,    in    other 
tongues  and  in   other  ages.     Thus  the  fol- 
lower of  Christ  finds  Christ's  likeness  in  the 
280 


OF   RELIGION 

fellowship  of  the  earlier  Buddha  and  sees  re- 
flections of  his  teachings  in  the  Koran  of  the 
later  Mahomet.  Though  to  us  of  Christian 
faith,  Christ,  the  supreme  fulfillment  in  human 
form  of  the  divine  spirit,  is  the  Way-shower 
above  all  who  in  less  measure  have  been  filled 
with  the  spirit  of  God,  it  becomes  evident,  as 
we  know  more  and  think  more  about  the  reli- 
gion of  others,  that  any  great  religious  teacher 
is  a  leader  in  the  upward  path.  The  Christian 
may  not  despise  those  who  follow  the  teach- 
ers of  their  race  in  paths  leading  where  Christ 
led,  or  disdain  those  who  practice  a  Christian 
virtue  better  than  himself.  The  followers 
of  Buddha  have  no  need  for  societies  for  the 
prevention  of  cruelty  to  man  or  beast,  nor 
those  of  Mahomet  for  temperance  movements 
and  prohibition  parties.  We  need  not  become 
Buddhists  to  learn  from  Buddha,  or  Maho- 
metans to  seek  what  Mahomet  may  have  to 
teach,  nor  join  each  Christian  sect  to  get  good 
from  the  precept  or  practice  of  Romanist,  An- 
glican, Methodist,  Quaker,  or  Christian  Sci- 
entist. 

As  the  Christ  had  his  forerunner  in  John 
and   his  interpreter  in  Paul,   so  in  a  wider  Non-Chris- 
vision,  the  earlier  Buddha  and  the  later  Ma-  I?"  3^^^^" 

'  gions 

homet  had  each  his  mission  in  the  fulfillment 
281 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

of  religion  for  the  races  of  mankind.  Buddha, 
seeking  through  the  great  renunciation  a 
simpler  way  and  a  truer  aim,  failed,  as  all  hu- 
man effort  must  fail,  to  satisfy  with  his  doc- 
trine of  Nirvana  the  insatiate  desire  of  the 
finite  mind  to  solve  the  problems  of  infinity, 
and  his  followers,  as  generations  passed,  di- 
vided like  Christendom  into  innumerable 
sects,  papal  and  protestant,  idolized  the  de- 
stroyer of  idols,  and  formalized  a  religion 
which  was  to  free  men  from  forms.  But  Bud- 
dha's "  noble  path  "  is  not  the  less  a  way  of 
virtue  and  of  life,  and  his  "silver  rule"  the 
other  statement  of  the  "golden  rule"  of 
Christ.  Mahomet,  fierce  like  the  prophets 
of  old  with  holy  wrath  against  the  idolatrous 
practices  of  his  Arab  brethren,  and  against 
Jews  and  Christians  who  had  corrupted  the 
pure  monotheism  of  their  fathers  with  super- 
stitions and  idolatries  innumerable  and  with 
ungodly  life,  fell  before  the  temptation  of 
world-conquest,  and  his  religion  became  per- 
verted into  fanaticism,  fatalism,  and  sensual- 
ity. But  the  simplicity  of  the  mosque  and  of 
the  liturgy,  in  heed  of  his  commands  against 
graven  images  and  idolatries,  and  the  devo- 
tions of  his  people  in  every-day  life,  are  not 
without  their  lessons  for  Christians. 
282 


OF   RELIGION 

To  him  who  sees  in  all  times  and  amongst 
all  nations  the  workings  of  God  in  His  world,  The  Bible 
it  must  be  evident  that  the  three  great  reli- 
gions which,  originating  within  the  compass 
of  a  thousand  years,  have  divided  the  alle- 
giance of  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  must 
each  have  a  real  basis  for  their  triumph ;  that 
neither  is  true  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others, 
however  supremely  true  may  be  our  own 
faith;  and  that  in  the  truth  underlying  all 
and  to  which  all  point  is  the  way  of  life. 
And  in  this  same  light,  the  Bible,  our  own 
Bible,  in  the  "  newer  criticism  "  which  makes 
it  human  as  well  as  divine  literature,  is  no 
longer  an  arsenal  of  weapons  from  which  one 
adversary  may  slay  another  with  contradic- 
tory "  proof -texts  "  and  doom  whole  "  denom- 
inations "  to  eternal  perdition,  but  the  re- 
cord of  a  race  gifted  above  all  others  with 
the  gift  of  religion,  seeking  after  God,  find- 
ing Him  in  the  terrors  of  broken  law  and  in 
the  beneficences  of  law  fulfilled,  listening  to 
His  voice  through  Moses  the  great  law-giver 
and  that  line  of  statesman  who  were  prophets 
of  his  righteousness,  until  in  Christ  the  Mes- 
siah came,  at  last,  the  fulfillment  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets. 

In  this  new  light  the  missionary  impulse 
283 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 


The 

missionary 
Spirit 


The  Better 
Way 


is  yet  to  find  its  full  glory.  At  first  denying 
to  all  men  but  the  few  the  mercy  of  God, 
the  churches  presently  sought  to  pluck  "hea- 
thenism "  out  of  the  minds  of  half-developed 
men,  and  replace  it  with  the  Christianity  of 
civilization,  as  defined  by  each  church  in  its 
own  creed.  That  could  not  be  done.  The 
result  was  often  disastrous.  Creeds  con- 
fused. The  Buddhist,  taught  that  Romanists 
in  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  ate  the  body  and 
drank  the  blood  of  Christ,  or  misled  by  the 
atonement  imagery,  not  less  sanguinary,  of 
Protestant  hymns,  considered  Christians  a 
kind  of  cannibals  who  "ate  their  God,"  from 
whom  his  reverence  for  life  revolted  in  hor- 
ror. The  Mahometan,  confronted  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  Three  in  One,  by  devotions 
before  the  images  of  Christ,  the  Virgin,  and 
the  Saints,  and  by  the  intoxication  of  men 
from  Christian  countries,  was  confirmed  in 
his  belief  of  the  purity  of  his  own  religion, 
which  knew  only  One  God  and  kept  him  from 
idolatry  and  from  drunkenness.  The  vices 
of  civilization  were  often  transplanted  instead 
of  its  religion.  Fire-water  and  firearms  went 
with  the  Gospel  of  Peace.  But  now  has 
come  a  better  way  —  not  to  destroy  but  to 
develop,  to  find  not  only  the  agreements 
284 


OF   RELIGION 

among  Christians  but  between  Christians 
and  those  of  lesser  light,  that  these  may  be 
led  into  the  clearer  shining  of  the  perfect 
day.  The  struggle  is  but  begun,  yet  the 
result  should  be  sure.  Christian  missionaries 
who  are  truly  Christ-like  and  have  truly  the 
missionary  spirit,  will  seek  lovingly  to  inter- 
pret, instead  of  hatefully  to  misunderstand, 
the  ceremonies,  beliefs,  and  aspirations  of  the 
twilight  peoples  and  make  them  bridges  to- 
ward the  faith  of  the  perfect  day.  And  in 
turn  Christianity  is  receiving  from  other  reli- 
gions their  aid  towards  the  higher  life.  The 
prayers  from  Egyptian  temples,  the  teach- 
ings of  Socrates  and  Plato,  the  thoughts  of 
Marcus  Aurelius,  are  helps  to  the  devout 
life.  Buddha  joins  forces  with  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi  in  teaching  us  to  love  our  little 
brothers  of  the  earth.  The  Orient  contrib- 
utes to  our  sacred  anthology,  and  its  aspira- 
tions seem  not  out  of  place  in  Christian 
pulpits. 

All   religions   are   useless,  and   the   exer- 
cises of  religion  waste,  if  they  do  not  show  Religion 
their  fruits,  harvest  after  seedtime,  in  prac-  Practical 
tical  every-day  life.     He  who  is  truly  godly 
or  good  will  not  rest  short  of  helping  in  his 
285 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

turn  to  increase  good  among  his  fellow-men, 
and  in  that  sense  at  least  bring  them  nearer 
to  God,  more  in  accord  with  divine  order. 
In  state  as  in  church,  in  business  as  in  soci- 
ety, —  that  is,  in  politics,  trade,  conversation, 
—  religion  must  be  known  by  its  practical 
applications,  in  fulfilling  the  direct  aim  of 
religion,  righteousness  of  life.  And  he  who 
believes  not  in  a  "personal"  God  has  not 
the  less,  indeed  has  the  more,  need  to  use  all 
helps  toward  the  spiritual  life,  which  uplifts 
man  from  strength  to  strength,  as  on  wings 
of  eagles. 

All  religions  join  with  ethics,  with  philo- 
Soul  sophy,  with  common  sense,   in  emphasizing 

supreme  fQj.  ^-j^g  soul,  the  spirit,  supreme  place  in  the 
making  of  man.  And  this  necessity  is  shown 
by  contraries.  The  most  awful  crime  among 
the  most  hardened  people,  as  the  murder  of 
a  mistress  from  jealousy  by  a  brutal  outcast, 
witnesses  to  the  strength  of  that  personal 
individuality,  dwelling  in  the  body,  yet  not 
the  body,  which  binds  man  to  man.  Friend- 
ship, love,  hate,  —  these  are  relations  not 
physical,  but  meta-physical,  supra-material, 
spiritual,  and  they  are  supreme  relations. 
The  thought  of  the  soul  fighting  with  the 
body  for  supremacy  is  as  old  as  life  itself ; 
286 


OF   RELIGION 

it  is  a  thought  in  the  Bibles  of  all  peoples, 
and  comes  home  to  every  man's  experience. 
A  modern  sculptor  has  carven  a  group  in 
which,  joined  as  they  touch  the  earth,  the 
man  spiritual  with  face  alight  in  aspiration  is 
seen  struggling  against  the  man  physical,  of 
form  alike  yet  different,  with  face  dull  in 
brutishness.  If  the  soul  does  not  conquer, 
the  body  will.  If  the  body  conquers  it 
dooms  the  soul  to  base  subjection.  If  the 
soul  conquers,  the  body  follows  its  leadership 
into  new  life.  The  one  is  discord,  the  other 
harmony.  It  is  only  in  the  supremacy  of  the 
soul  that  life  can  be  one,  that  man  can  live 
his  life  in  unity  with  himself  and  with  the 
Power  that  makes  for  righteousness. 

And  which  shall  be  conqueror  is  a  question 
not  so  much  of  original  gift  as  of  training.  The  con- 
Despite  heredity,  men  are  born  with  possi-  ^^®"^e  S°^^ 
bilities  of  good,  and  may  be  educated,  phy- 
sically or  morally,  to  withstand  and  survive 
the  seeds  of  ill.  The  soul  may  be  an  athlete 
or  a  weakling.  Many  a  man,  puny  in  body, 
with  small  gift  of  physical  life,  has  out- 
stripped in  the  race  of  life  his  fellows  of 
greater  physical  strength,  by  careful  and 
well-willed  development  of  a  weak  physique. 
So  also  has  the  soul  choice.  It  may  put  itself 
287 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

in  line  with  the  forces  of  good,  or  let  itself 
go  with  the  current  of  evil.  It  may  be  edu- 
cated, developed,  quickened ;  or  it  may  be 
dulled,  stunted,  deadened.  There  must  be 
training  of  the  soul,  by  the  exercise  of  spir- 
itual powers,  lest  there  be  atrophy  of  the 
man  spiritual.  It  is  sometimes  true  that  the 
uplifting  of  the  soul  requires  the  crucifixion 
of  the  flesh  —  the  eternal  parable  of  the 
Cross.  The  waters  of  sensuality  drown 
darkly  the  breath  of  spiritual  life.  Educa- 
tion is  therefore  a  duty  toward  the  soul. 
This  the  modern  man  too  often  forgets. 
The  uplift-  Being  good,  godly,  to  his  fellow-man,  he 
ing  Spirit  neglects  to  be  good,  or  godly,  within  himself. 
Non-godliness,  not  ungodliness,  is  the  con- 
dition of  present-day  living.  But  the  exer- 
cises of  religion  are  a  vital  part  of  life.  In 
some  form,  the  Sabbath,  the  Bible,  worship, 
prayer,  or  their  equivalents,  belong  with  every 
well-ordered  man  and  nation.  Altruism  may 
forget  self,  but  self  should  not  be  forgotten. 
We  owe  a  duty  to  ourselves,  within  ourselves, 
as  well  as  without  ourselves  to  our  fellow- 
man.  Religion  redeems  not  destroys  self. 
And  the  higher  life  uplifts  the  body  itself 
into  its  most  perfect  wholeness  and  peace. 
Thus  the  higher  and  the  lower  motives  con- 
288 


OF   RELIGION 

join  in  the  great  unity  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness. And  whether  we  think  only  of  the 
life  that  now  is,  or  also  of  the  life  that  is  to 
come,  whether  the  pathway  of  being  seems 
to  any  one  of  us  to  lead  to  the  shut  or  to  the 
open  door,  it  is  in  the  supremacy  of  the 
higher  man,  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  supreme 
art  of  life,  that  life  on  earth  is  indeed  worth 
the  living. 


289 


THE   END 


THE   END 

\0  what  purposed  end  is  a  human 
being,  are  human  lives,  devel-  The  Pur- 
oped  through  education,  trained  P°^^  °^  ^'^® 
by  business,  organized  as  gov- 
ernment, inspired  with  religion  ? 
"  To  the  glory  of  God  "  was  the  easy  but  eva- 
sive answer  of  the  old  theology — though  it 
counted  more  souls  damned  than  elected. 
The  glory  of  God  we  now  see  to  be  the  good 
of  man.  If  the  balance  of  human  living,  of 
all  human  lives,  is  not  for  good,  for  right,  for 
happiness  in  the  high  sense,  there  is  no  God, 
or  He  is  not  Good,  or  He  has  not  Power  — 
this  cry  Humanity,  whatever  its  creed,  utters 
in  its  heart  of  hearts.  Thus  a  human  life, 
overwhelmed  by  a  fate  which  it  may  have  in- 
vited or  which  may  have  been  brought  upon 
it  by  others,  is  minded  to  "  curse  God  and 
die,"  save  as,  with  the  eye  of  faith,  seeing  its 
present  sacrifice  in  a  too  narrow  environment 
or  in  the  interests  of  the  larger  life,  it  looks 
toward  a  life  to  come  in  which  each,  among 
all,  shall  see  Good.  The  arts  of  life  find  their 
flower  and  fruit  in  human  character  —  the  The  End  of 
end  of  life  is  a  man.  Youth  builds  toward  ^'^^  ^  ^^"^ 
age  :  "  the  best  is  yet  to  be."  What  through 
293 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

the  years  that  are  told  a  man  has  become, 
what  he  is  in  himself,  what  he  is  to  his  fellow- 
men,  this  is  the  test  of  life.  The  artist  of 
the  Beautiful  should  find  in  Himself  his  Mas- 
ter-work. And  character,  within,  finds  expres- 
sion in  brotherhood,  without.  Through  men, 
living,  loving,  Man  has  fulfillment.  "Hu- 
manity," said  Kant,  "  is  an  end,  never  a 
means  merely."  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself,"  said  the  Christ.  To-day  the 
whole  world  is  become  our  neighbor,  and 
character,  in  the  individual,  is  fulfilled  finally 
in  the  brotherhood  of  humanity. 

The  ideal  of  life,  though  voiced  in  many 
Ideal  and       languages  and  from  many  lands,  has  likeness 
Aim  ^"^         throughout  humanity,  for  it  patterns  good  and 
seeks  communion  with  God.     But  the  work- 
ing aim   of   men   is  variant  with  time  and 
place  and  class.     The  ideal  may  be  God,  the 
aim  Mammon.     In  true  living,  the  working 
aim  should  mate  the  professed  ideal,  since 
in  all  true  relations  fact  and  theory,  deed  and 
creed,  conform.     Week-day  work  and  rest- 
day  prayer  should  be  to  the  same  end.    The 
proverbial    deacon  of   the   olden  time,  who 
sanded  the  sugar  six  days  in  the  week  and 
led  in   prayer  the   seventh,   is   in   our   day 
294 


THE   END 

the  "  trustee  "  who  pursues  money  or  power 
or  pleasure,  selfishly  and  unscrupulously, 
through  the  week,  and  from  an  expensive 
pew,  by  which  he  "  supports  the  church," 
"professes  religion,"  that  is,  the  highest 
character,  on  Sunday.  This  is  the  man  in 
high  places,  not  always  conscious  of  his 
essential  hypocrisy,  who  to-day  prejudices 
against  Christianity,  as  organized  in  the 
churches,  the  masses  who  because  of  him 
no  longer  go  to  church.  This  contradiction 
of  life-service  and  lip-service  of  our  day  is  the 
same  scandal  rebuked  by  Christ  in  his  time, 
and  it  must  be  swept  from  churches  by  their 
own  public  opinion  if  the  churches  are  to 
keep  Christian.  When  a  man,  a  nation, 
preaches  good  and  pursues  evil,  prates  peace, 
and  makes  war,  de-moralization  brings  surely 
its  dire  results.  For  morals  is  the  ad-just- 
ment  of  practice  with  profession,  and  from 
immorality  de-rangement  and  dissolution  are 
sure  to  come. 

In  the  actualities  of  human  living,  three 
great  classes  of  motives  have  their  resultant  The  three 
—  the  motives  of  self-interest,  the  motives  of  f^^^^  ^°" 
the  common-weal,  the  motives  of  the  higher 
life.  These  correspond  with  Aristotle's  divi- 
sions of  economics,  politics,  ethics.  But  mod- 
295 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

ern  thought  has  discerned  that  these  motives 
do  not,  in  true  living,  act  separately  and  dis- 
cordantly in  different  fields,  but  simultane- 
ously and  in  unison  in  the  general  field  of  hu- 
man action.  Laws  as  well  as  men  interact  and 
are  interdependent.  "Morals  precede  and 
dominate  economics,  as  they  precede  and  dom- 
inate politics  and  ethics."  "  Hear,  O  Israel, 
the  Lord  thy  God  is  One  God,"  is  a  truth 
throughout  all  Nature  and  all  thought.  Unity 
dominates,  precedes,  directs  all.  And  in  this 
Unity,  all  that  is  has  Union,  and  should  have 
Unison  in  united  aim.  Thus  the  aim  of  a 
man,  the  end  of  the  personal  life,  should  be 
to  produce  that  character  which,  through  the 
social  life,  contributes  most  to  the  well-being 
of  Man.  All  the  arts  of  life  conjoin  in  the 
making  of  man,  and  throughout  every  rela- 
tion of  man  with  man  should  show  their  per- 
fect work. 

In  this  sense,  each  relation  of  a  man  be- 
Society  yond  himself  is  seen  to  be  vital ;  casual  rela- 
tions are  causal.  Society  is  as  a  broad  ocean, 
the  common  meeting-ground  of  men,  where 
ship  meets  ship,  signals,  and  passes  on ; 
where  all  roads  cross  ;  where  the  stranger  is 
for  the  moment  the  neighbor.  On  the  road, 
296 


THE   END 

in  the  exchange,  wherever  men  meet  in 
groups,  signals  cross  and  character  should 
take  occasion  to  show  its  colors.  The  draw- 
ing-room and  the  dinner-table  gather  ships' 
companies  for  the  hour's  voyage,  who  come 
together  and  go  apart.  Mostly  the  ships 
drift,  and  so  their  companies  ;  relations,  being 
casual,  seem  trivial.  In  our  hours  of  ease, 
we  prefer  to  float  with  the  tide,  to  let  the 
sails  droop  and  the  rudder  go.  The  man  is 
rare  who  masters  social  relations  and  gets 
the  treasures  from  the  cargo  ;  the  woman  is 
rare  who  can  induce  people  not  only  to  give 
but  to  want  the  best  in  society.  Yet  even 
in  the  chance  relationships,  the  artist  of  life 
finds  flash  of  opportunity. 

Friendship  is  the  mutual  relation  by  which 
two  human  beings  give  and  take  each  of  the  Friendship 
other  in  a  true  fellowship.  It  is  the  immedi- 
ate type  of  the  larger  fulfillment  of  human 
brotherhood.  "  I  have  called  you  friend  "  is 
the  highest  compliment.  But  how  many  are 
the  degrees  of  friendship  —  how  various  its 
processes  —  at  how  few  or  how  many  points 
can  friends  touch  !  There  are  friends  with 
whom  we  are  heart's  brother  at  first  sight,  at 
touch  of  hand,  at  instant  exchange  of  thought, 
yet  in  complete  recognition  of  an  eternal 
297 


a  Friend 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

relationship;  there  are  those  with  whom 
relations  are  of  slow  growth,  but  then  endur- 
ing and  rounded  ;  there  are  those  with  whom 
we  make  contact  only  in  this  phase  or  that 
The  Use  of  mood  of  ourselves  or  of  them.  The  use  of 
a  friend  is  to  supplement  and  complement 
us — to  strengthen  us  in  our  strength,  by 
doubling  native  resolution,  to  buttress  us 
where  we  are  weak,  by  ranging  another  soul 
alongside  in  support  of  us,  to  uplift  and  sus- 
tain us  on  the  high  plane  of  our  best  endeavor. 
A  man  is  entitled  from  his  friend  to  sympa- 
thy and  support  for  the  best  that  is  in  him, 
and  he  must  give  in  return ;  otherwise  friend- 
ship is  a  poor  thing  and  of  no  avail.  Thus 
two  are  more  than  twice  one,  in  that  spirit- 
ual mechanics  which  is  above  mathematics. 
How  much  to  make  England  great  came 
from  the  friendship  of  Bright  and  Cobden ! 
Yet  how  often,  in  our  disregard  of  the  arts 
of  life,  do  we  fail  to  give  of  our  best  to  our 
friend,  or  get  from  him  of  his  best  —  how 
often  do  we  let  relationship  degenerate  into 
dull  routine  of  commonplace !  All  art  requires 
effort,  all  work  of  the  artist  personal  and  pur- 
posed exertion,  —  it  is  only  machinery  that 
can  grind  out,  without  fresh  impulse,  its  dull 
product. 

298 


THE   END 

For  that  true  and  pure  relation  between  a 
man  and  woman,  which  adds  to  friendship  Friendship 
the  charm  of  sex,  which  is  more  than  friend-  ^^^°s^  ^®^ 
ship  and  less  than  love,  we  have  no  name, 
because  it  hovers  forever  between  both  and 
cannot  in  itself  be  defined.  For  friendship 
is  the  final  and  settled  and  abiding  relation 
within  sex,  between  man  and  man,  between 
woman  and  woman,  and  love  the  like  relation 
across  sex,  between  the  one  man  and  the  one 
woman.  It  is  the  aim  of  nature  that  one 
man  should  be  joined  to  one  woman,  in  love, 
whose  fruition  is  the  future  ;  but  it  seems 
also  an  aim  of  nature  that  the  subtle  influ- 
ence of  sex,  which  adds  something  of  charm 
and  delight  in  every  relation  of  life,  should 
not  be  denied  its  more  general  outworking  in 
the  making  of  the  present,  in  the  unfolding 
of  the  woman,  in  the  uplifting  of  the  man. 
But  because  Nature,  with  this  motive  of  pro- 
viding surely  for  a  future  race,  has  so  kneaded 
into  ordinary  human  clay  the  lower  passion 
and  the  higher  glory,  because  this  relation  is 
a  borderland  of  twilight,  there  is  in  it  also 
the  danger  of  twilight,  the  confusion  of 
paths.  It  is  only  by  open-eyed  and  clear- 
sighted vision  that  this  difficult  path,  the 
nearest  to  the  supreme  relation  and  in  some 
299 


THE   ARTS   OF   LIFE 

ways  enlightening  even  beyond  the  every-day 
closeness  of  married  life,  can  be  rightly  and 
safely  followed.  It  is  a  path  between  the 
heights  of  love  and  the  precipices  of  pas- 
sion ;  it  may  lead  upward  or  downward ;  but 
walked  in  trueness  and  high  purpose,  its  de- 
nials and  limitations  are  in  themselves  devel- 
opment. 

Marriage  In  the  supreme  relation  between  one  man 

and  one  woman,  toward  which  all  Nature 
prepares,  the  home  is  founded  and  the  future 
has  birth.  The  marriage  customs  of  a  crude 
social  state,  marriage  by  capture,  by  pur- 
chase, through  the  negotiations  of  parents, 
or  the  machinations  of  the  marriage-broker, 
polygamy  and  concubinage,  as  told  us  in  the 
older  portions  of  our  own  Bible,  still  survive, 
alas,  as  in  the  marriage  of  an  American  for- 
tune with  a  foreign  title  or  in  relations  po- 
litely veiled  from  formal  recognition.  But 
more  and  more,  despite  the  conventional 
form  of  our  marriage  ceremony,  marriage  has 
become  the  mutual  pledge  and  self-betrothal 
of  the  man  and  the  woman,  in  equal  relations, 
each  to  the  other  all  in  all,  for  a  union  abid- 
ing and  supreme,  essentially  religious  be- 
cause of  its  up-reaching  into  the  higher  life, 
300 


THE   END 

and  its  out-reaching  into  the  eternity  of  the 
future. 

In  the  quickening  moment  of  a  true  es- 
pousal, all  things  seem  possible  in  a  new  Fulfillment 
world  to  which  marriage  is  the  portal.  Yet  Rg^aSon""^ 
how  often  the  spiritual  passion  also  cools 
from  its  divine  and  creative  ardor,  the  mo- 
ment of  exaltation  does  not  abide  in  move- 
ment of  spiritual  mutuaUty,  the  emotion 
lacks  fulfillment  in  motion  onward,  and  man 
and  wife  descend  too  soon  from  the  mount 
of  transfiguration  to  the  dull  grind  of  daily 
routine,  and  in  "  the  *  of  course '  of  married 
life"  the  quickened  again  become  dead. 
Here  also  supreme  and  abiding  achievement 
can  be  had  only  by  high  and  continuing  en- 
deavor. All  that  all  arts  of  life  can  bring 
into  lives  should  come  together  and  find  ful- 
fillment in  this  supreme  relation,  —  and  this 
can  be  accomplished  only  by  conscious  and 
purposed  and  supreme  effort,  in  a  loyalty  of 
love  which,  unsparing  of  self,  reaches  by  the 
divine  law  of  reward  the  highest  self -develop- 
ment and  the  noblest  outward  fruition. 

And  thus  comes  the  ideal  home,  that  little 
heaven  below,  where  in  happy  relations  of  The  ideal 
parent  and   child,  of  brother  and  sister,  all  ^°"°® 
arts  of  life  have  their  origin,  as  the  new  lives 
301 


THE    ARTS   OF   LIFE 

unfold  their  petals  one  by  one  in  the  garden 
of  a  new  Eden,  the  potentiality  of  an  earthly 
paradise,  from  which  love  has  cast  out  the 
serpent  of  evil.  The  home  is  ever  the  new  cen- 
ter from  which  circle  out  the  widening  waves 
that  go  on  and  outward  forever.  It  is  the 
microcosm  making  in  radiant  multiplication 
the  macrocosm.  Here,  in  little,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  race  is  reflected  and  prophesied. 
From  the  patriarchal  government  of  the  par- 
ents, out  of  which  proceeds  the  first  educa- 
tion of  the  child,  there  is  development  into  a 
true  commonweal  of  brothers  and  sisters,  a 
democracy  in  which  each  respects  the  rights 
and  regards  the  interests  of  each  other, 
throughout  those  little  affairs  of  child-life, 
large  indeed  in  the  closeness  of  perspective, 
in  which  there  should  be  a  competition  of  co- 
operation in  happy  harmony,  and  from  which 
naturally  proceeds  an  ethical  and  religious  evo- 
lution as  justice  is  fulfilled  and  transcended 
by  love. 

Charity,  in  our  modern  speech,  is  the  rela- 

Charity       tion  recognizing   in  those  not  otherwise  in 

relation  with  us,  the  needs  of  our  common 

humanity.     It  is  a  sad  evidence  of  failures  in 

our  civilization  that  the  beautiful  Greek  word 

302 


THE    END 

which  means  grace  and  love,  suggests  to  us 
organized  surveillance  against  fraud,  and  re- 
lief works  in  mitigation  of  pauperism.  Love 
is  heart-to-heart,  charity  has  come  to  be  at 
arm's  length.  Yet  it  must  be  seen  that  love 
cannot  do  as  it  would,  without  increasing  the 
very  ill  it  would  relieve.  It  meets  a  woman 
shivering  in  the  street,  with  a  half-clad  baby 
in  her  arms,  appealing  only  by  her  silent  mis- 
ery, and  it  cries  out  against  the  self-restraint 
"charity"  would  impose,  in  deferring  help 
until  it  can  be  given  with  knowledge.  And 
then  it  learns  that  money,  or  fuel,  or  food, 
would  but  make  worse  a  hell  in  which  the 
offspring  of  drunkenness  or  vice  is  mal- 
treated or  exposed  in  the  hope  of  thus  appeal- 
ing, without  audible  beggary,  to  those  whose 
tender  hearts  prompt  instant  help.  Thus  in 
the  development  of  the  social  organization, 
making  on  the  whole  for  good,  has  come  the 
need  for  personal  self-restraint  in  impulses  of 
love,  and  the  necessity  in  these  transitional 
times  for  large  and  far-reaching  organization 
to  mitigate  the  ills  which  have  come  with  the 
good.  Crime  exists,  and  must  be  punished  ;  Pre-yention 
pauperism  exists,  and  must  be  pre-vented  for 
the  future.  The  human  feeling  requires  us 
to  assure  to  the  wrong-doers,  and  to  the  de- 
303 


of  111 


THE   ARTS  OF   LIFE 

pendent,  every  help  that  can  be  given  to 
them  ;  but  they  cannot  rightly  be  encouraged 
to  propagate  their  kind  or  to  propagate  the 
conditions  that  have  made  their  kind.  Life 
may  not  be  made  '*  easy  "  for  those  of  moral 
or  physical  dis-ease.  But  this  renunciation  of 
the  human  impulse,  lest  it  be  inhuman  in  its 
results,  lays  upon  society,  upon  the  thinking 
and  prosperous  classes,  a  higher  and  greater 
responsibility.  It  affords  no  excuse  to  the 
smug  Pharisee,  content  not  to  be  as  other 
men  are.  The  social  organization  must  set 
itself  to  remove  the  causes  and  better  the 
conditions  out  of  which  disease  has  sprung, 
and  has  meantime  its  deepest  and  greatest 
problem  in  redeeming  and  resurrecting  into 
quickened  life  these  brothers,  dwellers  among 
the  dead.  Each  man  is  called  to  be  a  Re- 
deemer of  men. 

The  human  and  humane  sympathy  for 
The  Domi-  those  who  suffer,  the  recognition  of  the  trials 
of  human  life,  and  the  ills  that  beset  human 
living,  the  "  success  "  in  the  narrow  sense  of 
evil-doers,  leads  some,  in  these  days,  to  im- 
peach the  Present  as  lacking  a  Power  that 
makes  for  righteousness.  This  is  the  supreme 
impeachment  of  a  divine  order.  The  old 
304 


nance  of 
Good 


THE   END 

atheism,  denying  God,  is  of  the  past.  The 
atheism  of  to-day  is  the  Winding  pessimism 
which  cannot  see  the  good  dominant  amidst 
the  evils  and  denies  to  God  present  rule  in 
His  world;  the  practical  atheists  are  those, 
preachers  of  religion  though  they  be,  who 
would  have  civilization  "not  mended  but 
ended,"  and  would  replace  evolution  by  revo- 
lution. But  it  is  as  false  to  cry  that  whatever 
is,  is  wrong,  as  it  is  fatuous  to  believe  that 
whatever  is,  is  right.  The  true  prophet,  he 
of  the  larger  vision,  sees  through  the  mists 
and  clouds  to  the  ever-shining  sun,  and  is 
the  Way-shower  through  darkness  into  light. 
He  may  not  falter  in  his  belief  in  the  rule  of 
right  and  the  high  destiny  of  man. 

At  the  last,  then,  a  man,  studying  and 
practicing  the  arts  of  life,  knows  himself  as  a  The  End  of 
part  of  Man,  an  essential  and  integral  unit  and  Liie'^'*^  °^ 
factor  in  the  Universe,  the  master- work  of 
Nature,  the  agent  of  God,  in  every  act  acting 
in  unison  with  universal  Law.  Evolved  from 
the  past,  from  him  is  to  evolve  the  future. 
His  Now  is  part  of  Eternity,  and  this  earth 
a  part  of  Heaven.  The  thought  of  Evolu- 
tion, opposing  itself  alike  to  the  doctrines  of 
special  creation  in  nature,  of  revolution  in 
305 


THE  ARTS   OF   LIFE 

society  and  government,  and  of  instant  "  con- 
version "  in  religion,  has  become  the  great 
light  upon  God's  universe,  which,  more  than 
any  before  given  to  man,  gives  us  knowledge 
even  of  the  uses  of  evil  and  the  great  hope  of 
the  triumphing  of  good.  In  this  thought, 
to  each  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men  is 
committed  the  destiny  of  Man.  This  is  the 
End  of  the  Arts  of  Life. 


306 


PRINTED  BY  H.  O.  HOUGHTON  &  CO. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 

U.S.A. 


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OCT   14  1946 


LD  21-1007n-12,'43  (8796s) 


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I 


962562^ 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


